Die Schule als offenes Haus: school building and leisure in Switzerland in 1950s and 1960s

Since the end of the 1950s part of the debate on Swiss school buildings concentrated on the integration between education and leisure: educationalists, sociologists and architects alike militated in favour of the principle of ‘school as an open house’, where citizens as well as school children would find opportunities for spending their leisure time. A shorter working week generated an increased need for recreation centres, which were considered one of the best ways to counter the dual threat of the isolation of individuals and their annihilation in the anonymous mass of modern urban society. Motivated by economic and social reasons, local administrators and leisure associations fostered the idea of a network of recreation facilities integrated in schools. School buildings could offer ample premises for community purposes and could become the locus for the formation not only of the child but of the whole person. Architectural forms and urban locations of the school were thus reconsidered, in view of their role as living and active recreation centres. This paper focuses on the construction of such leisure infrastructure in schools in Switzerland, with particular attention to the city of Zurich. It aims to explain how the idea of ‘the school as open house’ influenced the design of school buildings during the 1950s and the 1960s, and to show how leisure activities and consequently recreation centres were conceived as pedagogical issues.