In Formation
This week I was absent from the class so my blog won’t be that detailed. Nevertheless I of course chose a poster that I would have presented.
I decided to focus on the Züri Brännt movement in the 80s.
The city of Zürich decided to invest 60 Million Swiss Francs into the opera house (a cultural institution of the bourgeoisie) and neglected the construction of an autonomous youth center. Therefore the the youth of Zürich decided to hold a demonstration on 30th of May 1980 in front of the opera house. This was the beginning of Zürich’s youth revolution.
The movement was quite radical and they started to occupy buildings and fought several times against police force — with injured people on both sides. They also came up with new media as they sent two people (Herr und Frau Müller, typical Swiss name) from the movement to a talk show of the Swiss national TV which hold the radical opposite position agains the youth movement. And this of course with high irony and mocking.
The movement had a lot of impact in whole of Switzerland and the youth started to fight for their place in the city. In the end, the Rote Fabrik Zürich was a first step they achieved with their revolutions. The Rote Fabrik still exists and is a very important place of (youth) Culture in Zürich.
