The differences between town and country must remain. Interview with Mike Guyer; architecture

By Simone Achermann

Zurich architect Mike Guyer believes that the countryside is becoming an attractive place to live in once again. But this means preserving the complementary qualities of town and country. In this era of globalisation, it is mainly a country’s traditional rural values that make people feel they are part of a nation and give them a sense of their own identity.

With the advance of urbanisation, the visions of the metropolis of the future begin to accumulate. Scarcely anyone, however, seems to be concerned about the development of the countryside as the city’s opposite pole. Why?

These visions focus on one topic, the future of the city. To keep things as concise and convincing as possible everything else is blanked out, including the countryside. It is in the nature of these concepts to concentrate on what is allegedly essential, through the instrument of selective perception. But there are also differentiated, more “low-key” approaches, such as the study: “Switzerland – An Urban Portrait” (2005) by ETH Studio Basel, which examines and describes the interactions and mutual dependencies in detail.

For reasons of sustainability, it makes sense for the population to be concentrated in the urban area. Is the countryside a thing of the past as an area for settlement?

Given its possibilities, the countryside should be used mainly for farming and for leisure-time activities, recreation and tourism. But if nature can be experienced intact there, many people will find these rural regions increasingly attractive as an alternative to living in the city. Nevertheless, an overdeveloped rural region, or the so-called “inbetween” city, which we are encountering more and more frequently in Switzerland, with all its uniformity and indeterminacy, loses its attractiveness and in the long term is

hard to accept as a living environment.

So what can be done about urban sprawl in a country as densely populated as Switzerland?

The urban sprawl on the Swiss Plateau has been so disastrous in the last few decades because the contrasts between built-up and undeveloped areas are becoming gradually more neutralised and the mutually dependent qualities of town and country are in danger of being eliminated. It is important, therefore, to restrict the concentration in the towns and villages to the areas that are currently being used for this purpose and to stop their seemingly endless horizontal spread. Empty spaces in the landscape should be protected, urban densities increased and a sharper contrast made between the two, even if it means encroaching heavily upon the autonomy of municipalities and even if it may affect private property.

There is a discussion in Switzerland at the moment about the differences in the way people vote in rural and urban regions. How strongly are people’s value systems influenced by their living environment?

The urban or rural environment they live in has, of course, a strong influence on people, especially if they live and work in the same place. Mentalities are different on account of different living conditions. The city is more dynamic, more receptive to what is new, more aloof, more anonymous; the country is more leisurely, more wary of the unfamiliar, more down-to-earth, more familiar. Increasing mobility, however, shows that many people change their environments every day as commuters, or several times during the course of their lives, and can thus appreciate and combine the qualities of the two domains.

And from a global point of view, doesn’t a Londoner feel closer to a Berliner than to an English farmer?

No. I think that the awareness of national identity has tended to increase on account of greater globalisation. A London banker might get on very well with his colleague from Berlin when it comes to business, but he will still feel closer to the English farmer despite the differences between town and country because they share the same origins, language and traditions.

So the cultural levelling found in the world’s big cities means that national identity is becoming more deeply rooted in the traditional rural values of a nation?

Yes. In the global area of tension characterised by competition, city dwellers often start reflecting once more on their own personal values and find them in the countryside. They discover afresh the qualities of traditional food, materials, traditional architectures and a lifestyle in close touch with nature and attempt to transfer these to their life in the city. The stronger the contrasts between town and country, the better the transfer of traditional values like these works. Radical urbanisation will make people’s lifestyles even more municipalised, more artificial, less close to nature, and city dwellers will appreciate the countryside and its closeness to nature even more. As far as science, industry, innovation, culture and dynamics are concerned, rural areas lag behind the city. But in the country and with the slower pace of life there, city dwellers can find themselves and discover common values once again.

What is your personal vision of the countryside?

In people’s imagination, the countryside will always be the most Arcadian of places to live in. But given the reality of a steadily growing population, we shall have to care for the countryside of the future and its vegetation in a sustainable manner. Major parts of the countryside should be common property and thus kept out of the reach of speculation. And it deserves a great deal of appreciation as the counterpart to the high-density living conditions in the towns and cities, and for this reason it must be an important part of the national identity.

Mike Guyer is an architect who lives and works in Zurich. After graduating from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) and several years as a trainee with Herzog & de Meuron and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Guyer established the Gigon/Guyer architectural bureau together with Annette Gigon. Gigon/Guyer have acquired an international reputation in the field of museums with buildings like the Museum Liner, the Kalkriese Archeological Park or the Kirchner Museum in Davos. Their latest project is the construction of the Prime Tower of