A Stroll Through the Zoo of the Future

The collective ZOOOF (Zoo of the Future) invites us to a wild imagination, rethinking the zoo not as a place of spectacle but of cohabitation.

Text: David Habets, Bart de Hartog, Ira Koers, Thijs de Zeeuw – 31.7.2021
Photos: ZOOOF

“Welcome to the Zoo of the Future” stands written in bright and shiny letters on the arch we pass through as we enter. The zoo is an implausible but real now. A place where historic, contemporary and speculative relations of human nature can coexist. Let us take you on a walk through these spaces that link up contradicting views on our relationship with nature, in the past, the present and the future.

The team of ZOOOF describe these rapid changes in an essay in archithese’s new issue Koexistenz.

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>The relationship between human and animals was characterized by ambivalences. Some animals are seen as useful, some as bestial and others are our daily companions. In archithese 5.2001 Architektur für Tiere, we portray how architecture treated animals since the idea of the zoo was invented.

> The Elefantenpark in Zurich is a typical example of contemporary zoo architecture. In archithese 1.2015 Swiss Performance Niklas Naehring honored its shape, which gives the possibility of an adaptable habitat.