FURAL: The Rediscovery of the Zip Roof
A metal construction from the 1950s celebrates its comeback two school buildings in the city of Zurich were recently given a new roof using a kind of profiled metal sheeting that, although it was used worldwide in the 1950s, had to be rediscovered by Diethelm Spillmann Architects for this new roof. The fact that the building contractor had the making of this roof recorded on film so as to be able to train other metal roofing companies says it all and shows two things: the stimulating effect of conservation concerns the contractor also has his eye on new buildings and the topicality of what is known as the roof, one of many inventions of the Swiss architect Josef Furrer (1910-1976). Although three years ago it looked as if the Untermoos school complex by Eduard del Fabro, which is on the list of protected buildings, would be given a corrugated metal or even a standing seam sheet metal roof, now the buildings are covered by a newly made Fural roof. Convinced by the self-evident constructional logic of the system, also under present conditions, Soba Inter AG, that worked with Fural in the 1950s has started production once again. The special thing about the zip roof, as the Fural roof is also called, lies in the fact that it can be fitted without screws. Just by unrolling it the metal locks with the substructure that has exactly the same profile so that no screw holes puncture the roof skin and the metal can move freely in all directions. The first Fural roofs made in Switzerland include, alongside military buildings, the Kurtheater Baden by Lisbeth Sachs, a holiday home in Grindelwald by Hans und Gret Reinhard and the Magazzini USEGO in Bironico by RinoTami. Even Le Corbusier clad the lakeside facade of his mothers house in Vevey with Fural in 1951.
