Expression is based on a three-term program at ETH Zürich investigating the topic “architecture and art”. Essays, interviews and students’ projects document and condense the findings of this topical research in the fields of art: film, literature and visual arts. Three concrete examples in Switzerland have been studied: a Giacometti museum in Stampa, a Cinémathèque in Locarno, and an Elias Canetti library in Zürich.

The book shows the differing influence film, literature, and visual arts can have on architectural thought and design. It also reveals the knowledge to be gained from combining arts and architecture. The essays by Josep Lluís Mateo, Florian Sauter, Isabelle Concheiro, Ramias Steinemann, and Philip Ursprung, and the interviews with Gottfried Böhm (German architect and sculptor), José Luis Guerin (Spanish film director), and Pier Vittorio Aureli (Italian architect and theoretician) explore the importance of artistic impulse on architecture.