Road traffic Exhibition to mark the 100th birthday of Lucius Burckhardt in Basel
SDA
29.1.2025 - 16:35

Annemarie and Lucius Burckhardt in front of their house in Basel's upmarket Gellert district.
Image: Keystone

Lucius Burckhardt speaking at a rally against the Basel Nordtangente freeway in 1989.
Image: Keystone

From science to activism: Lucius Burckhardt and his students from the Gesamthochschule Kassel walked through the city with a mobile crosswalk in 1993.
Image: Keystone

Annemarie and Lucius Burckhardt in front of their house in Basel's upmarket Gellert district.
Image: Keystone

Lucius Burckhardt speaking at a rally against the Basel Nordtangente freeway in 1989.
Image: Keystone

From science to activism: Lucius Burckhardt and his students from the Gesamthochschule Kassel walked through the city with a mobile crosswalk in 1993.
Image: Keystone
From the middle of the 20th century onwards, Lucius Burckhardt left behind urban planning ideas that continue to have an impact today. The Basel University Library is dedicating a biographical exhibition to the 100th birthday of the dazzling scientist.
Burckhardt (1925-2003) became a role model for one side and an enfant terrible for the other in 1955 at the latest, when he published the pamphlet "achtung: die Schweiz" together with Max Frisch and the historian Markus Kutter. In it, the authors denounced the major mistakes in urban and landscape planning in the post-war period.
From the 1960s onwards, the sociologist and economist from the Basel Daig or patrician family attracted attention as a lecturer at the ETH, but above all as Professor of Socioeconomics of Urban Systems at the Gesamthochschule Kassel (Germany).
There, together with his wife as a sparring partner, he developed and practiced his science of walking or promenadology. He was interested in the perception of landscapes, planning, building and mobility away from the desk. To raise awareness of the triangle of people, the environment and politics, as he put it.
Scientist and activist
His work was often accompanied by political activism against the motorist perspective of urban planners. As early as 1949, as a student, he opposed the correction plan and the Talent relief road through the middle of Basel's medieval old town.
He and his fellow campaigners failed with a referendum at the time. But he succeeded in putting his finger on the problem, so that the road plan was abandoned in the following years after initial interventions. However, his opposition to the underground Basel Nordtangente urban highway in the 1980s had no consequences.
"Seeing thinking" is the programmatic title of the exhibition in the Basel University Library. It leads through the biography of the exceptional scientist to important milestones in his work. In these, he and his wife reveal the pioneering thought-provoking impulses that have retained their topicality and explosive force to this day.
The exhibition "Sehend denken" at the University Library Basel is on display until August 13.