“Documented landscape” - vol. no. 7 in the “Image Worlds” series
The new illustrated book with photographs from the ETH Library Image Archive is now available.
«Documented Landscape» takes the reader back to the pioneering days of ecosystem research in Switzerland. Around 1880, Carl Schröter, professor of Botany at ETH Zurich, began documenting plants and their environment in photographs. Together with his student Eduard Rübel – founder of the Geobotanical Institute in Zurich of the same name – their aim was to research all factors that influence the biodiversity of the Alps. Along with the Alpine flora, they also documented landscapes and their agricultural use, as well as settlements and the people who live there. The resulting images, some of the oldest existing colour photographs of Swiss landscapes among them, have as much currency today as they had back then. At the same time, they offer a fascinating insight into long-gone worlds.
The illustrated book is available for purchase from the external page publisher Scheidegger & Spiess, as well as in the Collections and Archives reading room
Book launch:
Tuesday, 3 December 2019, 18:30
external page Book shop Never Stop Reading, Spiegelgasse 18, 8001 Zurich
Programme
- Greeting by Rafael Ball, Director of ETH Library
- Introduction by Ruedi Weidmann, author
- Apéro