About the authors

Michael Guggenheimer

A free-lance journalist and photographer in Zurich, Michael Guggenheimer grew up in Tel Aviv and Amsterdam. After studying Contemporary History and Social Psychology, he first became a newspaper editor before working for seven years in public relations for cultural projects in Eastern Switzerland and for thirteen years as press spokesman and head of the Department of Communications at the Swiss Cultural Foundation Pro Helvetia. He has written a number of books and published widely in newspapers and journals. In 2007, he was the co-curator, with Katarina Holländer, of the exhibition “Ein gewisses jüdisches Etwas”, a contribution to the European Day of Jewish Culture in Zurich (a collaboration with Omanut, an organization promoting Jewish culture in Switzerland, of which he is the Vice Chair). In 2008, he curated exhibits in Munich’s Stadtmuseum and at the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt.

Peter Röllin

Peter Röllin was born in 1946 in St. Gallen. He has a Ph. D. in Cultural Studies and Art History and lives and works in Rapperswil-Jona, Switzerland, as a lecturer, journalist, researcher, art expert, and curator. His specialties include cultural history and contemporary cultural work, along with the processes and experience of spatial transformation, the theory and practice of architecture and urban planning, and cultural projects and art interpretation. His numerous publications focus mostly on the history of architecture and urban planning. At Expo.02 in Neuchatel, he put on the pavillion “aua extrema” for the cantons of Eastern Switzerland. His other exhibitions include “Stickerei-Zeit” at the Art Museum in St. Gallen in 1989, “Stadtbahnhof-Bahnhofstadt Bern” at the University Library in Bern, and the photography of Peter Heman at the Architecture Museum in Basel. He also runs the IG Halle Rapperswil (the Kunsthalle).