swisster - zurich.

This article was first published by Swisster on May 16, 2008

Wrong side of the tracks: a tour of Zurich’s creative heart

Tom Armitage - Zurich

Hidden behind Zurich’s main railway station and dissected by the rail lines, the Langstrasse is a far cry from the elegance and glamour of the city’s main shopping drag. Notorious for its prostitutes and drug dealers, the neighbourhood has morphed into an edgy and innovative design or fashion hub. Its reputation is starting to spread across Zurich and far beyond the city limits.


Every city has its working class areas and Zurich is no exception. Kreis 4 and Kreis 5 (Zones 4 and 5) once housed the labourers and factory workers: now they are a colourful, multicultural area where families live in peace just a stone’s throw from raucous pubs, seedy sex-shops and thrumming kebab houses. The recent regeneration of the area, which includes the warehouse district Züri West, is akin to the transformation of parts of Berlin or Glasgow and follows the gentrification of London’s formerly working class areas like Brixton and Hackney.

In Zurich, the once neglected area now boasts some of the town’s best architecture and some of its most popular restaurants.The quarter’s main artery is the Langstrasse, the aptly-named ‘Long Street’, which joins Kreis 4 on the southern side of the railway tracks to Kreis 5 on the north. Once frequented by drug dealers, addicts and prostitutes, the street and its surroundings are now as likely to attract students and bankers on their way to one of the many bars and restaurants that have sprung up.This weekend the area will also play host to design aficionados and fashion fans as part of the ‘Kreislauf 4+5′ - an event that aims to showcase the stealthy design and fashion revolution that has taken place behind the neighbourhood’s sometimes grimy facades.

”The area has been undergoing a process of transformation for a very long time,” says local resident Severine Spillmann. ”Clearly there was a period when it was notorious, particularly the Langstrasse area, for its drug problems but over the last ten years there has been a real influx of creative people.” Spillmann is a public relations practioner at Grüninger PR, a local agency that co-organised the Kreislauf 4+5. Held for the first time in 2007, the event was so successful that Spillmann and the agency’s owner, Rene Grüninger, were encouraged to stage it again.Over 60 independent shops and boutiques will throw open their doors on Saturday and Sunday (17-18 May) to welcome visitors and display a range of innovative fashion, design, jewellery, accessories, shoes and gifts that is rarely seen in a town the size of Zurich.

Visitors can pick up a copy of the specially produced guidebook and follow its maps and instructions to create a tour of the area: they can take their
pick of what is on offer from shoes at Asphalt Urban Footwear, the new collections at BASMAN or the retro furniture at elastique. ” Plenty of people come to Kreis 4+5 in an evening and go to the cinema or go dining but they are perhaps not fully aware of the range of shops and boutiques there are here,” said Spillmann. ” It is not just about the nightlife. There is something else, this creative aspect. That is where the charm is: in the mixture.”

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