Stéphanie Baechler: Forget Me Not

The picturesque landscape of northeastern Switzerland is home to a diminishing number of Tröcknetürme and Hänggitürme: peculiar yet monumental wooden towers once used for drying dyed textiles. These structures are architectural remnants of the 19th century, when the region was a booming global centre of textile production.

This book records the life of these towers in two ways. First, photographer Ladina Bischof’s photo series documents the last remaining towers in Switzerland. Second, I share my research and process behind the production of a monumental public artwork installed at the Tröckneturm St. Gallen. Once myself a textile designer in St. Gallen, my intrigue for the towers soon became determination, not only to trace the histories of these structures and the work they accommodated but to give them visibility once again.

Two essays accompany these two strands of the publication. Historian Andreas Zangger focuses on the globally entangled threads of textile production in East Switzerland, while Michael Gnehm addresses the architectural history and legacy of the towers. Applying a non-hierarchical treatment of knowledge and compiling images, archival material, notes, anecdotes, correspondence, and commissioned texts, Forget Me Not is a wandering exploration of craftsmanship, an attempt to uncover almost lost histories, and, above all, an ode to material in an increasingly dematerialised world.