Self-guided tour
June 2–July 11

The project “Colors of (Colonial) Chemistry” by artist and scholar Denise Bertschi sheds light on the entangled histories of dye chemistry and photographic chemistry at the Federal Polytechnic in Zurich, from its foundation in 1855 to the turn of the century. Taking the biographies of ETH chemistry professors Pompejus Bolley (1812–1870) and Robert Gnehm (1852–1926) as a starting point, Bertschi explores heritage sites in ETH’s main building and the former chemistry building CAB, alongside sources from ETH’s university archives, art inventory, and chemistry collections.