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Everything is occupied (Swiss Stories 2025, by Michele Crestani) - Swiss Press Award

01 - La Rotonda and all the wagons right after the move in Hardturmplatz, Zurich, Switzerland. April 2023.
Michele Crestani
01 - La Rotonda and all the wagons right after the move in Hardturmplatz, Zurich, Switzerland. April 2023.
Photo / Swiss Stories
2025

Everything is occupied

Michele Crestani

On February 16, 2023, Zurich police evicted the Koch Areal, ending an occupation by 150 squatters. Those living in vans and trucks relocated to the fallow area of Hardturmplatz, which now is home to La Rotonda, an alternative community deliberately rejecting high rents and traditional housing. La Rotonda epitomizes Zurich’s housing crisis. It’s unclear for how long the city will tolerate it.

Back

Everything is occupied

Photo / Swiss Stories
2025

Michele Crestani

On February 16, 2023, Zurich police evicted the Koch Areal, ending an occupation by 150 squatters. Those living in vans and trucks relocated to the fallow area of Hardturmplatz, which now is home to La Rotonda, an alternative community deliberately rejecting high rents and traditional housing. La Rotonda epitomizes Zurich’s housing crisis. It’s unclear for how long the city will tolerate it.

Author
Michele Crestani / Swiss Press Award

Michele Crestani

Michele Crestani is a photographer born in Magenta, Italy, in 1992. Michele studied biomedical engineering at Politecnico di Milano. During his master's he moved to Singapore for a year and a half. In this experience pursued photography as an amateur, bringing to the surface a gift that his father passed to him as a child. Michele moved to Milan in 2018, where he obtained a PhD in Systems Medicine in 2022. He has been attending the photo-reportage school of photographer Valerio Bispuri since November 2022. Michele then moved to Zurich, Switzerland, where he still resides and works at ETH as a postdoctoral researcher since November 2022. He’s enrolled in a 2-year postgraduate program in the London School of Journalism and works as a freelance photojournalist.

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