Lecture
ONA Fokushalle E7
On the Ways of Seeing Urban Territories

Travelling Warrior and Planetary UrbanisationChristian Schmid

“The point of departure is a film by Christian Schocher, produced in 1979 and which had its premiere in 1981. At the time, the film was a sensation—at least for the few who saw it. The limited audience and showings were not surprising for a black-and-white film over three hours long, in which a man drives through the country and not much else happens. Yet this is a historic film because it captured, for the first time, an essential trend of contemporary Switzerland: the complete urbanisation of society.”

From: Christian Schmid, “Travelling Warrior and complete Urbanization Switzerland: Landscape as lived Space”, in: Neil Brenner (ed.), Implosions/Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization, (Berlin: Jovis, 2013).

Christian Schmid, geographer and professor of sociology at the Department of Architecture of ETH Zurich, will use Travelling Warrior to present his groundbreaking work on the problematic of planetary urbanisation. The lecture will be followed by a conversation with Matthew Gandy, UCL.