The Emotions of the Block
Linus Suter | Master Thesis , 2021
The Emotions of the Block explores the Telli, a large-scale housing estate in the small Swiss town of Aarau, as an emotional landscape. Departing from the notion that places not only shape emotions but are in turn shaped and defined by the emotions felt in and about them, this thesis traces the feelings, stories and people that compose the Telli. Archival research and in-depth interviews, framed in a critical engagement with the author’s own relationship with the Telli, illuminate a tapestry of emotional meanings. The Telli is at once an “other” for the town of Aarau, a relic from a bygone era, a space of trouble and in need of change, and a home, a space of leisure, and a source of pride for those living there. It was built as a modern home for the upper middle class of the 1960s and 70s and has become a neighbourhood considered either (pejoratively) cheap or (in a more positive light) affordable. And yet, those who get to know the Telli re-count the same story, time and again: That of a moment of inflection, a switch in feelings, from apprehension to pleasure, from anonymity to knowledge, from foreign to home. In exploring this landscape of feelings, The Emotions of the Block allows for a nuanced interpretation of estates like the Telli and demonstrates the importance of emotion in shaping spaces.