The history of slaughtering is very exciting from a spatial point of view, because there have been efforts to create special places for it or to exempt other places from it for a very long time. In the history of the city of Zurich, this has so far led to three relocations of the slaughterhouse, after slaughtering was only allowed at this location 500 years ago and prohibited everywhere else in the city. The decision was made for a location directly next to the Limmat, as a lot of water is needed for slaughtering, processing and cleaning. The second location, at that time still outside the city, was a little downstream. It was not until the third location, built at the beginning of the 20th century, that the considerations of a railway connection prevailed and the slaughterhouse moved to the Letzi district. Today, this too is in the middle of the city.
The ownership of the infrastructure is also interesting: the city owned the building, the butchers used the place for a fee on their meat. While the working methods changed, from one person cutting up a whole animal in one place to assembly line production and specialised workers dividing the work between different stations, the ownership of the infrastructure remained the same. Today, the city rents out the slaughterhouse to a corporation that emerged from the once independent butchers.
In the 1980s, the slaughterhouse that is in operation today was built with two slaughter lines - one for pigs and one for cattle, sheep and goats.
At that time, the location still seemed very suitable and the number of slaughters could even be increased. Zurich was still an industrial city. New housing estates were built mainly on the outskirts of the city at the cost of the agricultural land. A good 40 years later, the site is hotly debated and the rental agreement between the city and the slaughterhouse has not been renewed after 2029. Should the slaughterhouse have to leave the site, it is more likely to be absorbed into larger slaughterhouses in Switzerland than to look for a fourth location. The site is one of the few remaining industrial areas located in the middle of the city of Zurich and offers many jobs in the second sector.
(1) - Fleisch für Zürich, 100 Jahre Schlachthof Zürich, S. Desiderato, M. Illi, U. Lengwiler, C, Steffen, 2009 (2) - Schlachthof Zürich bleibt bis 2029,
foodaktuell (3) - Stadt Zürich, Nutzungsstrategie Schlachthof-Areal (4) - Die grössten Fleischverarbeiter der Schweiz, Doris Bieler, Schweizer Bauer, 28.10.2017 (5) - Schlachtbetrieb Zürich AG, Hompage (6) - Die Schweineschlachtanlage im Schlachthof Zürich, Schweizer Archiv für Tierheilkunde, 89 (1947)
