Sara Meyer

Two statues stand on a balcony of the ‘Bananenhaus’ behind Limmatplatz. An investigation into racist stereotypes and their colonial history contextualises the statues as caricatures of Black men and makes this visible. A mapping and differentiation of types of colonial traces locates the statues within a wider net of problematic physical and architectural manifestations in the publicly accessible space of Zurich. How should the state, the architectural community and society at large deal with this colonial legacy? Through literature study and interviews with a variety of stakeholders this master thesis proposes four ways to deal with the statues of the ‘Bananenhaus’. A manifesto demands political action and calls for public debate.