The project ZURICH CITY NIGHT LIGHTS was produced in the months October/November 2012 after multiple videos of big cities like New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco appeared on social media. Zurich is much smaller than those cities but if you take a closer look it has a lot to offer. The biggest city of Switzerland is constantly growing and undergoes changes all the time.

Due to the size of Zurich sightseeing goes quick but it has a very unique charm. Especially at night some places shine and intensify the urban lifestyle. Even after 8 years living in Zurich the artist still found new things and beautiful places which are less striking during the day.

To show off the city of Zurich from its romantic side there has been taken 33'150 photos which were combined into a time-lapse video. With this technique single frames are captured in an interval and afterwards merged into a video file. Due to that technique the effort was huge. In countless nights and more than 200 working hours this presentation of the nightlife in Zurich was created and shows the city like it has rarely been seen.

Next to the search of suitable places, a lot of endurance was needed because taking the photos for the short sequences took between 10 and 120 minutes. In the city center the artist had to wait next to the camera whereas on places like Forch the camera was left alone in the darkness and picked up few hours later.
When taking pictures in Zurich people often were interested what the camera did and what time-lapse photography is.

Maybe you are able to find some sceneries which you don’t know yet.

You would like to see these places with your own eyes at night? Here is the list where the videos has been taken:

00:00 – Central/Limmatquai from the Lindenhof
00:24 – Landesmuseum from the Bahnhofsbrücke
00:31 – Central/Zürich Hauptbahnhof from the Hirschengraben
00:37 – Limmatquai/Grossmünster from the Uraniastrasse
00:41 – Weinschiffe at the Bürkliplatz from the General-Guisan-Quai
00:44 – Crossing Urania-/Bahnhofstrasse from the Lindenhofstrasse
00:55 – Utoquai next to Bellevue
00:58 – University of Zurich from the Lindenhofstrasse
01:01 – Clouds above the Forchstrasse
01:08 – Boats on Lake Zurich from the General-Guisan-Quai
01:15 – Uetliberg from the Utoquai
01:22 – Stars above Forch
01:29 – Building site of the Toni-Areal from the Pfingsweidstrasse
01:36 – Building site in Oerlikon from the parkade Messe Zürich
01:39 – ERZ Entsorgung + Recycling Zürich from the parkade Messe Zürich
01:43 – Mascotte at Bellevue
01:46 – Zürich Bahnhofstrasse
01:50 – Zürich Hauptbahnhof from the ETH Zürich
01:57 – Trains at Zürich HB
02:03 – Passangers at Zürich HB
02:11 – News Bar from Zürich HB
02:14 – Fraumünsters from the Utoquai
02:17 – Prime Tower from the Geroldstrasse
02:21 – Offices in the Prime Towers from the Duttweilerstrasse
02:28 – Hardbrücke from the parkade Pfingstweid
02:31 – Sunrise Towers in Oerlikon
02:34 – Offices in the Sunrise Tower in Oerlikon from the parkade Messe Zürich
02:38 – Hardbrücke from the parkade Pfingsweid
02:45 – Escher-Wyss-Platz from the Waid
02:48 – Zürich from the Waid
02:52 – Drahtschmidlisteg from the parkade Hauptbahnhof Zürich
02:55 – Schanzengraben from the General-Guisan-Quai
02:59 – Limmatplatz from the Limmatstrasse
03:02 – Autobahn A3 direction Chur from the Manessestrasse
03:05 – Autobahn A3 from the Allmendsteg
03:09 – House beneath the bridge to the Uetliberg tunnel
03:12 – Bus terminal at the Zürich Airport from the parkade 5
03:19 – Sunrise from the Uetliberg

Music by Wrm

If you can’t watch the video above please try the following website. ZURICH CITY NIGHT LIGHTS by Gianni Krattli

Zurich City Night Lights


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