Follow the rise of the unconventional Zurich Concretists.

They were reviled, ridiculed, and ignored. Today, the Zurich Concretists—along with Dada—are considered the most important art movement originating from Switzerland. Circle! Square! Progress! tells the story of the city’s avant-garde movement, which is rooted in the Bauhaus and renewed the formal language of art, shaped design and architecture, and positioned itself politically. It traces its relations to the heroes of Constructivist–Concrete art and examines influences from graphic art and advertising, jazz music and dance, color theory, and mathematics.

Max Bill, Camille Graeser, Verena Loewensberg, and Richard Paul Lohse—a group incidentally thrown together rather than true conspirators—formed the center of gravity of a milieu that wrestled with critics, institutions, and authorities. Lavishly illustrated, this book explores Zurich as the setting for highly gifted people engaged in lively debates at bohemian cafés, celebrating excessively at the legendary annual artists’ fancy dress ball, and achieving fame and artistic triumphs with creative power and a sense of mission. It illuminates the Zurich Concretists’ successes of the 1960s, their at times extremely violent quarrels of the 1970s, and their disputes about the beauty of form.

Thomas Haemmerli is a Zurich-based journalist, writer, and director of film documentaries. Brigitte Ulmer is a scholar of history based in Zurich and London who works as a cultural publicist and writer.