New building Zirkusquartier Zurich
A circus house for Altstetten and the world
Contemporary circus pieces (“Nouveau Cirque”) have been produced and performed at Zirkusquartier Zurich since 2016. Artists train and research, network and pass on their skills to the next generation.
Here, children, young people and adults, professionals and amateurs live the circus dream in a modern way: playful, experimental and low-threshold.
Zirkusquartier 2027 – A permanent home for the circus
In collaboration with Kraftwerk1, the long-awaited center for contemporary circus is being created in the Koch Quarter on around 700 m2 – unprecedented not only for Zurich, but for the whole of Switzerland.
When you enter the eight-storey Kraftwerk1 building, you suddenly find yourself in the foyer of the Zirkusquartier. The desk provides information for residents, but also explains the course program, shows the way to the rehearsal rooms and sells tickets for events.
During performances, the doors of the circus hall are opened to the left, leading directly to the audience stand. Up to 150 people can be seated here. The stage covers an area of 10 x 11 m with a ceiling height of 7.2 m and is equipped with ceiling rigging, bracing points sunk into the floor and state-of-the-art event technology. The course hall is directly adjacent: it measures 7.5 x 11 m and benefits from the same room height and the same technical requirements as the circus hall. This means that disciplines such as skidding, trampolining and tightrope walking can be taught at a high level.
Circus hall
Circus productions have requirements that most theater spaces do not meet: Room height, floor conditions and rigging points are just some of them. The new Zirkusquartier uses simple means to create a hall that artists dream of.
Course hall
Courses take place all day in the Kurshalle, while free slots are used by professionals for training. The offer ranges from “Zirkuszwärgli” to semester projects for young people that combine physical theater and artistry to master classes for professionals.
Coal storage hall
Zurich’s largest covered parking area is open to the city’s population around the clock. Circus Chnopf will celebrate its premiere here in the future, and Zirkusquartier is also planning events such as the ZirQus festival.
From the foyer, you go up the stairs through the “Sala Comun”, which is available to all tenants, to the second floor. The office of the Zirkusquartier team is set up here, with direct access to mirror room. Equipped with a dance floor and mirrors, smaller productions or educational theater work can be carried out there. The adjacent guest rooms in the building are rented out for artists in residence.
Back on the first floor, we turn to the right. Compagnies develop their stage sets in the 100 m2 workshop, while residents can use the space for their projects. An important place for low-threshold networking with the 460 or so people who live in the building – and with the outside space, as the workshop opens its large doors towards the coal storage hall. It is part of the public park and offers a huge covered area. This is where the Chnopf circus rehearses its annual open-air spectacle, protected from the weather.
Anyone relaxing on the large Kochwiese in summer 2027 will be looking directly at the large windows of the Kurshalle and Zirkushalle, symbolizing the accessibility and vision of the open house: “Culture for everyone!”
“Circus is much more than sawdust and popcorn. Cultural forms and genres are wondrously intertwined and whisk us away into an incomparable universe. Fascinating, poetic, accessible and inclusive: a stage art for everyone. With Zirkusquartier Zurich, modern circus arts now have their own venue. This will further inspire the development of this art form. And that is wonderful.”
Federal Councillor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider
Federal Department of Home Affairs
General plan
The new building of the Kraftwerk1 cooperative is located on sub-area C, adjacent to the coal storage hall. The future double hall of the Zirkusquartier (circus and course hall) can be recognized by the large X in the right-hand picture.
Would you like to find out more?
Further information on the overall project can be found on the Koch-Quartier project website or from the City of Zurich, and more on Koch-Park from Grün Stadt Zürich. To find out how you can live and work in the same building as Zirkusquartier in future, visit the Kraftwerk1 cooperative.
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