A quiet weekend afternoon in Zürich. At the Galerie Gmurzynska on the city’s central Paradeplatz, an exhibition devoted to Picasso hangs along the gallery’s undulating Zaha Hadid-designed walls. Suddenly a smartly dressed woman dashes in. “Excuse me, is that for sale?” she asks the young man at reception, pointing to a Picasso drawing as though enquiring after a lamb chop. Sadly not, he replies – it’s already sold – and she’s out of the door with a shrug. I ask the receptionist if this happens very often. Well, you have to remember, he replies politely, we’re opposite places like that – gesturing to the vast headquarters of a major Swiss bank. I take it as a yes.
So far, so Zürich. Switzerland’s largest city, wealthy and venerable for centuries, arguably still labours under the impression that it is slick, staid, bourgeois and not a little entitled. But there is, in fact, another Zürich, far looser and more playful than the austere façade. It would make sense in a city that is rapidly expanding: Zürich recently reached its largest population size since 1962. If it is no longer a byword for banking, the industry having dispersed, it is still a hub for companies such as Google (it’s home to its largest continental European HQ) and always drawing in international talent; meanwhile, other Zürich natives, or “Zürchers”, have chosen to return. One symbol: in the ever-gentrifying west of the city, formerly an industrial zone where young Zürchers would go for underground raves, the sportswear company On has just opened its On Labs flagship store, where 651 staff from 54 nationalities congregate to work, exercise and enjoy its vegan restaurant. The average age, says On’s founder, David Allemann, a proud native Zürcher, is 31.
