(Re)branding the Flon identity: A Swiss Youth Embassy_Flon ... - EPFL

Swiss youth - the ‘80’s revolution
“...wir wollen Alles, uns zwar subito!”
This is one of the expressions to be heard on the streets of swiss cities, during the 1980’s when Swizerland
was shaken by a series of youth riots, the result of simmering discontent with what many young people felt
as the suffocating weight of bourgeois culture. 1
The spark came when the Zürich city authorities decided to allocate a large subsidy to the local opera
house. A group calling itself the Red Factory Action Group (“Rote Fabrik”) clashed with police, at a protest
gathering to demand premises for alternative, non-commercial youth culture. Shop windows were smashed
and cars burnt. The demand for Autonomous Youth Centers (AJZ) became one of the key slogans of the
revolt which spread across Switzerland.
There were riots through the ‘80’s in larger Swiss cities: 1980 in Zürich and Lausanne, in 1982 and 1987 in
Bern, and in 1988 in Basel.
As seen in the photos (left) taken from that time, the main message expressed in many languages, was one
of despair from youth on not being heard. In german graffiti from the 1980’s (top left), one reads “too much
civilization”, and in french (bottom left) the graffiti reads, “No future 1981. Let’s make one.”
1 www.swissworld.org
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