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Berta Rahm’s Diaries 1935–1950

Friederike Merkel with Milena Buchwalder, Sonja Flury, Dorothee Hahn, and Larissa Müllner on behalf of the ProSaffa1958-Pavillon association, together with Fredi Fischli and Niels Olsen of gta exhibitions, ETH Zurich (eds.)
© 2021 editors. 21.6 x 17.1 cm
173 pages
English / German / Swiss German

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This book is published on the occasion of the exhibition The Power of Mushrooms: Berta Rahm’s Pavilion for the Saffa 58 at gta exhibitions, 8 March – 10 December 2021. The growing exhibition in stages revolves around the recently rescued pavilion by Berta Rahm, originally built for the Schweizerische Landesausstellung für Frauenarbeit in 1958, short Saffa 58. Departing from its built presence, the exhibition deals with the role of collaboration and collective effort in the repositioning of female architects in our histories and futures.

“In the summer of 2016, I visited Berta Rahm’s holiday house Laueli in Hasliberg on the occasion of an excursion as part of my studies at ETH Zurich. The owner of the house, Iris Kaufmann, brought along a diary by Berta Rahm and read from her descriptions about the house. This is how I became aware of not only one, but all of her diaries, stored in the house of Iris Kaufmann and took this as an opportunity to examine Berta Rahm’s life more closely. In the framework of the student research project “Archiv für Berta Rahm,” I am currently contextualizing her built work through her diary entries in the form of an archive. As valuable historical documents, the diaries illustrate from a personal perspective what it meant to be one of the first women in architecture in Switzerland. I selected the entries compiled in this book to shed a light on her professional life between 1935 and 1950, especially of moments where she reflects on her struggle with the traditional image of the architect.”
– Friederike Merkel, editor and researcher of the diaries