Naegeli and Zurich’s car parks

It is not only in the ETH garage that spray drawings by Harald Naegeli from the 1970s have been preserved. In Zurich, preserved original graffiti can be seen in the Jelmoli, Sihlquai and Hohe Promenade car parks.

Jelmoli car park

Not far from the busy Bahnhofstrasse is the Jelmoli multi-storey car park at Steinmühleplatz 1. At the end of the parking spiral, one comes across three figures by Naegeli, which were preserved as part of the 2008-09 renovation work. Before that, other sprayers were active in the garage and partially sprayed red and blue paint over Naegeli’s figures. During the refurbishment work, Naegeli’s spray lines were simply left out by painting close to the figure in places with the new paint. In addition to the three figures in the multi-storey car park, a fourth has been preserved in the stairwell. However, half of it has been painted over.

More pictures and address: here

Sihlquai car park

In the Sihlquai multi-storey car park, not far from the Carpark, only two of Naegeli’s fantasy creatures (1978) still animate the stairwell. An eye figure with feelers and a primordial woman with a double eye. The multi-storey car park is run by the city of Zurich and during the renovation in 2009, the figures were left out and additionally protected with a plexiglass panel.

More pictures and location: here

Parkhaus Hohe Promenade

An der Rämistrasse zwischen Kunsthaus und Bellevue liegt der Eingang des Parkhaus Hohe Promenade, welches ebenfalls der Stadt Zürich gehört. Im Lift weist eine kleine Tafel auf die verborgenen Kunstwerke hin. Im Geschoss M befinden sich drei gut erhaltene Sprayzeichnungen von Naegeli aus dem Jahr 1978. Bei der Sanierung des Parkhaus 2010 traf man eine ähnliche konservatorische Massnahme wie im Parkhaus Sihlquai. Die Figuren, darunter eine Urfrau, eine Spinne und ein Käfer, wurden beim neuen Anstrich ausgespart und mit einem Schutzlack versehen.

Mehr Fotos und Standort: hier

Urania car park

In addition to the ETH garage, there was an equally extensive cabinet of figures in the Urania multi-storey car park until the mid-1980s. SRF documented the suite in a short film in 1983 and thus preserved it for posterity. Andreas Müller-Weiss also thematised the “Autosilo” and the figures in his graphic novel.

Film:

«can it be because of the moors that people are nefarious? In a certain sense, yes, it is walls, symbolic and real, that block access to humanity – concrete walls seem to be built for eternity to repel humanity.»

from Harald Naegeli: «mein revoltieren mein sprayen», 1979