Séquin & Knobel
Industrial Architecture Map

Since its beginnings, industrial architecture has followed general principles of rationalisation of design and implementation, creative specialisation and global transfer of experience. However, the process has not been merely mechanical, anonymous – the overall direction has been formed by specialised architectural design offices, capable of designing the appropriate spatial layout and construction while still meeting the demands placed on the outer appearance of the resulting building. The office of Carl Arnold Séquin-Bronner (1845–1899) and his associate – and future successor – Hilarius Knobel (1854–1921) established in Rüti near the city of Zürich, Switzerland, introduced advanced British methods of textile factory design as well as a number of their own construction innovations to continental Europe, having reportedly designed more than two hundred industrial buildings. This map makes it possible to draw connections between individual buildings themselves and between their current owners, users and admirers, who have repurposed and redefined many of them in the course of time.

Prepared by the Research Centre for Industrial Heritage at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University in Prague as part of the project Industrial Architecture, supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic. Concept: Lukáš Beran; collaborators: Benjamin Fragner, Irena Lehkoživová, Jakub Potůček, Petr Vorlík, Jan Zikmund; texts: Lukáš Beran, Michael Hanak; translation: Jana Kinská, Robin Cassling; system: René Bezvald; IT programming: Martin Fuchs; graphic design: Jan Forejt / Formall.