Stadtmodell 1800

Stadtmodell 1800 shows Zurich as it appeared around 1800, before nineteenth-century changes reshaped the city. Architect Hans F. Langmack completed the cardboard model in 1942.

He developed it from historical research and worked with apprentice George Amstutz during its construction. The model uses a one-to-five-hundred scale.

Its stretched octagonal form measures about 4.8 metres long and 4.2 metres wide. Two joined sections follow the Limmat’s left side.

The display reveals streets, buildings, fortifications, monasteries, and Fraumünster Abbey within historic Zurich. Medieval walls and baroque ramparts remain visible.

The model rests on Johannes Müller’s precisely measured city plan from the late eighteenth century. Langmack mapped each building block with streets, footprints, heights, and roof shapes.

Facade drawings and historical views then supplied references for constructing the individual cardboard buildings. Haus zum Rech presents the model.

Its ground-floor setting connects the city model with the Building History Archive and City Archive. Historical photographs, plans, and documents support that archival setting.

The preserved research material includes Langmack’s card indexes for Zurich, images, and building facades. Some of that indexed material remains available in digitised form.

Together, the model and archives show how Zurich’s urban structure connected medieval defences with later buildings. Cardboard turns a vanished cityscape into a readable physical record.