Art in the Information Center

An artwork with the prompt "Read" can now be found hanging in the sofa lounge on the H floor of the Information Center, a work by artist Ümran Schelling-Tezcan, and a gift to the library from Professor emeritus Andrea Vasella.

The sofa niche on the H floor of the Information Center is a popular place for relaxed reading. So, it is only fitting that the calligraphic work by Turkish artist Ümran Schelling-Tezcan, who lives in Zurich, is now hanging here.

Islamic ornamentation is divided into three categories, all of which can be traced back to the linear art of the arabesque: the floral ornament with the organically winding forked leaf tendril, the rectilinear braided ribbon ornament, the geometricized arabesque, as it were, and in between the calligraphy, which, following the script, repeatedly plays over into the floral or pure geometry.

Ümran Schelling-Tezcan practices calligraphy especially in its geometric form, as it has been used since the 10th century in the kufik, the monumental form of Arabic script. And the geometric characters mean nothing other than the command "Read! in Arabic script.

We would like to thank Professor Vasella for this donation for our reading lounge. Andrea Vasella studied chemistry and biology at the University of Fribourg and obtained his doctorate at ETH Zurich in 1971. Study visits took him to Jack Baldwin at King's College London and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as well as to Robert B. Woodward at Harvard University. He returned to ETH in 1974. In 1977 he became Assistant Professor at the University of Fribourg and Associate Professor at the University of Zurich. He was appointed full professor there in 1988. From 1987 to 1989, he headed the Organic Chemistry Institute of the University of Zurich (OCI). From 1993 to 2008 he was Professor of Organic Chemistry at ETH Zurich and can still be found regularly at ETH Zurich, including at the Info Center.