In The Light of The Night

The Zurich lakeside community of Stäfa consists of an accumulation of «Wachten» – historic hamlets – which were originally separated from each other by the agricultural land and connected by roads and paths. Over time, the open spaces between were built over, as particularly during the building boom of the post-war years. The photographs show the historic hamlet of Oberhausen and the immediately adjacent development of the Bahnhofwiese from the 1950s. Both are easy to read in their physical authenticity, but the prevailing prosperity is nevertheless visible: the street design is manically perfect.

The pictures were taken after midnight in the graveyard shift; apart from a few cars and a drunken man, no one was around. The full moon and the street lighting immerse the in itself familiar and unspectacular scenery in a seemingly unreal light.

The series is part of an ongoing investigation into the interaction of natural, man-made and social forces in the environment. One focus lies on the photographer‘s centre of life, the Zurich Gold Coast.