Zurich’s Club Culture Shines Through the Lenses of Sophie Green and Christian Werner

It was nearing 30°C and shimmering. Backdropped by the towering Alps, patient crowds thronged the bridges that curved over the sparkling Limmat River. The air was charged with a joyful energy. Drenched in golden late-summer light, Zurich’s old town set an idyllic stage for its annual Street Parade. Founded in 1992 as a demonstration of love, tolerance and freedom, it offers a window into Zurich’s greater techno culture, whose legacy has earned it UNESCO Cultural Heritage protection.

To capture its big energy and small details against the backdrop of the day, Zurich Tourism gave a carte blanche to Sophie Green and Christian Werner, two photographers with distinctive styles and a common talent for blurring the line between documentary and art and photography. Each spent the day taking their camera around the city’s streets, along the main parade route and into its off-spaces, snapshotting spontaneous gatherings, chance encounters and between moments that infused the usually serene city with supercharged energy.

“Music attracts a certain community. There’s something very compelling about that,” says London-based Sophie, whose work engages narratives around identity, and cultural heritage. The shoot marked her first time in Zurich. Her conception of the city – “maybe quite conservative, conventional” – faded fast as she immersed herself in the day’s atmosphere.

“The Street Parade creates a real, kind of concrete platform for there to be a kind of symbiosis between the city and its music scene,” she continues. “It was fun to shoot an event where people are very hedonistic, and they’re just having a great time. There’s something very magnetic about that energy,” she reflects. “It’s the good moments of life that we remember – finding freedom and dancing to music, becoming part of this collective. It was fun to be part of that buzz.”

A seasoned traveler known for his nuanced portraits of people and cities, Berlin-based Christian was more familiar with Zurich’s arts scene and welcomed the chance to study it anew. “It’s always rewarding to experience new places, as you can approach them with a fresh perspective on details and atmospheres,” he says, before acknowledging the conventions ready for a refresh. “People have a certain image of Zurich: it runs smoothly, everything is in order, people are healthy and fit, and everything just works.”

The Street Parade and the countless off-parade events that spun off its main streets, parks and ample public spaces dissolved that image fast. Though Christian held Swiss rave and techno culture in high regard – “there’s a flourishing cultural and music scene here” – the scale of the parade, with an attendance of 920,000, surprised him. As he set off through the crowds with his Contax G2 in tow, he found himself drawn to the quieter moments, as reflected in the city views and architectural details that feature alongside his portraits.

He felt especially at home at an alternative electronic music party at the Zentralwäscherei club, a community-driven arts and music space in a former laundry in the dynamic Kreis 5 neighborhood. “It reminded me of the Berlin subculture of the ‘00s and ‘10s when it was driven by art students,” he reflects. “It felt political, alternative, cool, with good music and yes, a very peaceful and tasteful atmosphere.” One difference to Berlin was discernible. “There was a slightly healthier vibe,” he laughs. “It was anything but mainstream, very lovingly done, with a real sense of community. Even in moments of excess, Zurich seemed very positive.”

Cultural institutions anchor his shots, captured on 35mm Kodak Portra film. Two are taken at Barfussbar, “right by the river, very chic with bathing cabins, very connected to nature, beautifully decorated, and so very friendly,” as he puts it. One captures a queer party during the day. Metallic party streamers glitter and flutter in the sunshine. “I found the colors against the sky so beautiful, like an afternoon rave outside at Berghain, but prettier. It had a Mediterranean, light summer feel,” he notes. The other depicts a drag queen who welcomed after-dark partygoers with a warm embrace. Christian captured her face, pulled into an expression of surprise, deliberately out of focus.

Zurich’s architectural diversity comes to the fore in Christian’s images. One shows a man filling up his water bottle from an ornate public water fountain, one of 1200 across the city, in a quiet moment of repose from partying. “A big theme on this very hot day was staying hydrated,” Christian comments. “Here you can see the quality of life.” Another depicts the former Bally Capitol, a commercial building on Bahnhofstrasse in Kreis 1, was constructed for the Bally company and completed in 1968. As the first modernist building on this iconic street, it is now recognized as a cultural asset of regional significance. “Only the ‘D’ is lit, but it actually says ‘Sound’,” Christian notes. Despite the influx of people, the chaos, the sounds, and the heat, a serenity characterizes his photos: “There was a certain calmness. Though the city was in a state of exception, you never had the feeling it got out of control. Everyone was polite, friendly, peaceful.”

Meanwhile, through the lens of her medium-format film camera, Sophie sought out faces and scenes that reflected the spirit of the day. “I was gravitating to interesting characters, looking out for a mixture of portraits and then details and scenes that could kind of represent a certain vibe, or energy of the event,” she says. “When you’re reacting to an event like this, you’re having to work in a very kind of spontaneous and intuitive way, because you’re having interactions and interactions are just unfolding all around you,” she says.

Beyond the vibrant energy of the main parade, it was the quiet, in-between moments that drew her in. One of her images captures two women with their heads pressed together, sharing an intimate moment. “That image really captured the joy where people are feeling that freedom, that high of just having fun and engaging in music as part of a like-minded community,” Sophie notes. “There’s something that people can unite around for shared reasons. It creates a sense of belonging.”

In addition to the many faces of Zurich’s creative scenes, it was the extravagant beauty of its natural setting that captivated Sophie, who felt grounded between the city’s mountains and water. The closeness to nature felt tranquil, creating a striking juxtaposition with the intense parade of urban life, disrupting the quieter image of Zurich she’d had in mind on arrival.

Disrupting stereotypes is equally important to Christian’s practice. “I approach capturing a city like I photograph people. It’s a portrait. I try to convey a mood that tells a story,” he says. To him, the notion of the photographer as an objective outsider is an illusion. “There’s no such thing as purely classic documentary photography in the sense that it’s always intensified by personal preferences or interests that influence what you capture,” he says. “It’s about presenting yourself, locating oneself: where am I, what’s happening here?”

That said, his photos bear a certain detachment from their subjects. “I always maintain a conscious distance, the perspective of a ‘participant observer’, Christian explains. “My role is to watch. There’s a fine line between documentary and art photography. The pictures can be detached from the event. They should feel unseen.” At first glance, his shot of the city’s landmark Grossmünster church rising proud over Lake Zurich’s northern riverbank, on which rows of partygoers sunbathe, appears as a classic tourist composition. A closer look reveals “this special mood, in a different light,” he notes. “It’s extremely important to me to avoid clichés. The photos must have something special.”

Sophie, too, hopes her photos will crack open viewers’ perspectives on Zurich, just as her experience bringing its underground to light did hers. “Photographs, as visual representatives throughout time, have been an incredible indicator of different events and historical moments in the world. No matter how big or small those are, culture tells you so much about people,” she muses. “Culture exists because people are essentially trying to make meaning, to find purpose in this life. The way people are making meaning and bonding over a shared sense of identity expresses so much about the creativity of the human mind.”