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Discover Zürich-West
A new urban quarter has been born
The old industrial quarter will soon be one of Zürich's most popular districts
"Zürich-West has transformed the citys reputation from a place of attractive affluence to one of the buzziest urban scenes in Europe"
A counter-cultural groove first gripped Zürich-West in the early 1980s, when radicals, artists and musicians formed an alternative community in the Wohlgroth building next to the railway line.
The ragged band held way-out exhibitions, live performances that wouldn’t have shamed the Dadaists and – no doubt to the consternation of the building’s actual owners – lived as squatters.
The Wohlgroth is long gone, but its lasting legacy to Zürich was a new urban quarter, born into the neighbourhood of old factories, warehouses and breweries that once generated Zürich’s prosperity.
With a neat symmetry, the explosion in high-style bars, underground clubs, cool cafés and zeitgeisty galleries in Zürich-West has transformed the city’s reputation from a place of attractive affluence to one of the buzziest urban scenes in
The main drag for the district is the rocking and rolling Langstrasse, where designer drinking dens, indie cinemas, high-end eateries and street fashion boutiques stand side by side along a fast-paced, mile-long strip between Helvetiaplatz and Limmatplatz.
Here you’ll find streets of galleries, design studios, purveyors of mid-century furniture, cafés full of young, impossibly attractive arty types and the much-celebrated Museum für Gestaltung design museum.
Delve deeper into the district and the industrial area off Limmatstrasse will reward fans of post-industrial chic. In one old brewery alone there are five galleries, including the stunning Migros museum of contemporary art and a fabulous art bookshop.
Seek out the massive old ship-building plant known as the Schiffbau, where, slotted into the vast space below the original machinery, there is a jazz club, two theatres, a rooftop bar and LaSalle, one of the city’s most acclaimed restaurants.
The old brick building, with a structural block of cool, contemporary glass rising out of its heart, is like a metaphor for the renaissance of the whole district.
For more information on Zürich, visit www.zuerich.com or call 0041 215 40 04
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