Database "System & Serie"

From 2016 to 2023, the working group System & Series of ICOMOS Suisse realized an interdisciplinary and practice-oriented research project on building systems and system buildings in Switzerland under the title “Swiss system building between social utopia, pressure of use, and monument preservation”. The focus lay on the systematic recording of building systems in Switzerland as well as the corresponding system buildings.

As a result of this work, the research tool and database “System & Series” has been available online since May 2025. The database contains information on buildings, system families and subsystems, involved architects, clients, engineers, companies and selected publications, which are updated from time to time.

The database enables various search strategies: The free text search combs the entire database. The category list on the left allows you to compare systems, buildings, or actors. The categories ‘Place’ and ‘Canton’ can be used to search topographically.

Important: Due to copyright and personal rights, only a small part of the data originally collected by the working group is available online for viewing. A further collection of material on system construction in Switzerland can be consulted on site at the Chair of Construction Heritage and Preservation at ETH Zurich.

Images/Copyright: Oliver Marc Hänni; 
Bauen + Wohnen 23 (1969), No. 5, n. p.; 
Elementbau, catalog of Ernst Göhner AG, n. y. [ca. 1970], p. 2.13.