A Book I Love

In late August 2025, we gathered at the Spitzplatz, a paved clearing in a small park next to Zurich’s main station. The triangular park, edged by water on two sides, sits where the Limmat and Sihl rivers meet. This convergence of rail, water, and road routes stretching across Europe – in a park once known for its community of drug users – felt like an apt place to meet.

This discussion was convened around Ice by Anna Kavan, published in 1967, and chosen by Emilie Appercé. On hand were Helen Thomas of Women Writing Architecture, Geraldine Tedder, curator and director...

In February 2025, four of us met around a small table at entrance to the Frauenkulturarchiv in the historic heart of Chur. This reading room in an extensive library and archive of documents collected about the lives and activities of the women of the Swiss Canton of Graubünden was founded in 1997 by Silvia Hofmann and Silke Redolfi.

Jaehee, who is from Korea but who has lived in Europe, in Germany and Switzerland, for ten years was joined by her friends Paul Grieguszies and Ji Min An, both practising architects, with a colleague at women writing architecture, Helen Thomas. Together...

In December 2023, we travelled to Milan to visit Spazio. This bookshop is edited by and filled with the presence of Mariana Siracusa. On display is a carefully chosen, read through, and ever-changing list of 300 old, rare and newly published books.

Mariana, who is from Argentina but who spent time at the CCA in Montreal, was joined by an uncharacteristically small number of people – just two: Helen Thomas of women writing architecture and architect and Canadian Adam Caruso, to discuss how this provocative book by Margaret Atwood, first published in 1972, could be relevant to the architectural discourse,...

In August 2023, we met in Ennenda and you will hear some familiar voices of A-B-I-L, joined by the German artist Gritli Faulhaber.

The conversation deals with the challenging but fruitful issue of how poetry can be writing about architecture, and this is addressed in several ways as we talk about the poem Slowly: a plainsong from an older woman to a younger woman by poet and activist, Judy Grahn.

With:

Tine Milz (theatre director), Geraldine Tedder (curator), Helen Thomas, (architect, writer, and publisher), Emilie Appercé (architect), Alicia Ayla Yerebakan (artist), Gritli Faulhaber (artist)

At:

Ennenda, Glarus