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The Weststrasse in Zurich: once a central transit axis, today a neighborhood street with a 30 kph speed limit. For 30 years, north-south traffic in Zurich ran mostly along the narrow Weststrasse in the 3rd arrondissement, but with the opening of the Western Bypass, the neighborhood was freed of this through traffic. The Weststrasse shed its nickname of the “nation’s exhaust” and became a low-traffic area mostly for pedestrians and cyclists. Zurich-based photographer Corina Flühmann has been documenting this process of change since 2007. Weststrasse is not just a sober, long-term photographic documentation, or just a colorful illustration of the street. This artist’s book is instead a precise description of Zurich’s social demographics. It contains portraits of men, women and children, young and old, native Swiss and people of foreign origin, each in their own living and working environment within the neighborhood. Where there used to be long lines of cars and trucks jostling down the street, the newer pictures show pedestrians and bicyclists strolling along.
(Edition Patrick Frey)