In Zurich, a New Mixed-Use Development Takes Some of Its Inspiration From Former Squatters

Mätti Wüthrich and Eva Maria Küpfer are "hall house" veterans. In 1999, Mätti, a senior campaigner at Greenpeace, started squatting with a group of a dozen or so people in a former paint factory in Zurich as part of an experimental flat-sharing community and stayed for 15 years. Eva, a choreographer, dancer, and massage therapist, first lived in a squat house in the early aughts, calling a disused wine-bottling plant at the edge of the city her home. She later moved into the former paint factory where Mätti was living, and the two became a couple, going on to live with a dozen others in a former Suzuki sales office.