Building on the lake can be very tedious. The new construction of the “Fischerstube” has shown this. And that shows again very clearly the watch of the water protection police, which was already put on the rails in 2012.
The construction containers will be removed, and then the new building will present itself in all its beauty.
If there was ever a need for a new building, it was for the water police station. The earlier building dates from 1952 and no longer met the requirements of the company. If you came from the city and turned off to the Mythenquai lido, you no longer saw the actual building on the left, but a kind of wagon complex made of metal containers.
Long court case
It didn’t look pretty, but it was necessary to provide cloakrooms and toilets for women, for example. The first plans for a new building, which should make the provisional arrangements superfluous, were rolled out at the end of the 1990s, but it only became concrete in 2012: In that year, the architectural office E2A won the corresponding competition, and the Zurich municipal council zoned the building site and an area of the building lake around.
Somewhat optimistically, it was said at the time that the building would cost 12.6 million Swiss francs and that the building would be ready for occupancy in 2016. Both requirements could now not be met by far, which initially has to do with the appeals of a neighboring rowing club. It went from the construction appeal court to the administrative court and back again. The legality of the rezoning and border distances were disputed. It was not until 2017 that the opponents were able to come to an agreement.
But now things happened quickly: In 2019 the referendum took place, in which a whopping yes majority of 86 percent showed once again how urgently the new building was considered to be necessary. After two and a half years of construction, the station is now practically complete. In August, the handover to the police takes place, who can then leave their temporary home in Tiefenbrunnen and put the new building into operation.
This is where the control room is located, the heart of the station – with a great view of the entire lake basin.
View of the whole sea bay
The heart of the new building is the control room, which is glazed on three sides and will be manned 24 hours a day. A media tour makes it clear why it was ultimately decided that the previous location should also be the new one: from here you can see almost the entire city of Zurich’s lake bay. Ultimately, only the civilian port administration and the workshop and shipyard operations will remain in the building in the Tiefenbrunnen.
As you walk through the new building, you’ll see a few things that normal buildings don’t have, such as a detachable space for the inquest. If a drowned body is recovered, it can be medically examined here. There is also a “Footroom,” which is another word for prison cell. However, those responsible assured that any stay in this very uncomfortable cell would be limited to a very short time.
Detailed views of the construction of E2A.
In addition to the deadlines, the originally calculated costs could not be met: in the 2019 vote, a loan (including reserves) of CHF 21 million was approved. Now it also needs a supplementary credit of 1.3 million Swiss francs. There are several reasons for this – in addition to the delay in construction: On the one hand, there have been various delivery bottlenecks due to the pandemic, on the other hand, building on and in the lake is always a special challenge because you have to take flora and fauna into consideration.
This was already clearly shown when the “Fischerstube” was built on the other bank. The building permit specified in detail in which months no work was allowed at all because a certain species of fish could be spawning. It seems to have been similar at the water police station. André Odermatt, the municipal building manager, only indicated that there were “some complex challenges” here too.
The room in which the diving equipment is stored – in specially designed cupboards, by the way.
One of the self-produced boats of the water police.
Hatcheries on the roof
The building itself was also designed to be very animal-friendly. The roof of the building is not only “a small power plant”, but also offers breeding grounds for the common terns, which have become rare. On the other side of the lake, an area of 300 square meters was ecologically upgraded to compensate for the strain on the lake and shore. Overall, one can speak of a “model project in terms of sustainability,” said Odermatt.
There are 22 workplaces in the new building, which are shared by 33 employees 24 hours a day. In total, spread over the various locations, the water police employs a good 50 people. The central task of the “Wapo” is to ensure safety on all waters in Zurich. She has to search for missing people and if necessary salvage them, fetch crime property and weapons from the bottom of the lake, guarantee the safe implementation of the Street Parade and Züri-Fascht – but in individual cases also fish rubber boats out of the water in front of the Höngger weir or a family of ducks that move into the city lost, bring them back into their original element.