Markus Breitschmid, assistant professor of architecture, led 55 architecture students from the Technische Universität München in Germany to visit the K. + N. House in Wollerau-Zürich, designed by the internationally renowned Swiss architect Valerio Olgiati. Valerio Olgiati will be visiting Virginia Tech’s campus on October 11 and 12 to participate in Swiss Architecture: Designing, Constructing, Building, a symposium organized by Breitschmid.

The group of students and faculty from Munich are studying architectural concepts of “contemporary living” by visiting exemplary architecture built between 1920 and the present in the Swiss city of Zurich.

Breitschmid, a tenure-track assistant professor in Virginia Tech’s School of Architecture + Design in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, is a visiting professor at the Institute for Design Methodology of the Technische Universität München for the current semester. He received his architectural education in Switzerland and the United States, is a registered architect and is a member of the Swiss Institute of Architects and Engineers. He received his doctorate from the Institute of Building History, Architectural Theory and Building Preservation at the Technische Universität Berlin in Germany. He has lectured and served as a design critic at various schools in Europe and the United States. Previously, Breitschmid has taught at Cornell University, the University of North Carolina, and the Catholic University of America. His scholarship encompasses what is commonly known as German Modernism and focuses on the aesthetic mentality of Modernism.

The College of Architecture and Urban Studies at Virginia Tech is one of the largest colleges of its type in the nation. The college is composed of two schools and the departments of landscape architecture, building construction, and art and art history. The School of Architecture + Design includes programs in architecture, industrial design and interior design and the School of Public and International Affairs includes programs in urban affairs and planning, public administration and policy, and government and international affairs. The college enrolls more than 2,000 students offering 22 degrees programs taught by 160 faculty members. Virginia Tech, the most comprehensive university in Virginia, is dedicated to quality, innovation, and results to the commonwealth, the nation, and the world.

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