“Teaching is about translating popular knowledge”

It might be tempting to say that Yves Pedrazzini’s eclectic career lacks coherence. But look more closely and a common thread emerges – one that makes his choices seem perfectly logical, even organic. All the pieces fit together in a way that feels almost natural. Previously a senior scientist at EPFL’s Laboratory of Urban Sociology (LASUR), Pedrazzini retired at the end of the 2023–2024 school year, although he still works with LASUR as an associated scientist.

The adventure began when Pedrazzini – who grew up and studied in Lausanne – was in high school in Lausanne and found himself in the science track even though “there wasn’t a scientific bone in my body.” His good grades were due to the fact that “the guy sitting next to me in class was kind enough to let me copy off of him,” says Pedrazzini. But this strategy didn’t get him through the final exams: “I failed science so I switched to literature, but that didn’t get me into university.”

Learning with punk rock

Pedrazzini had to sign up as an auditor for the modern philosophy class he was interested in at the local university. “Then I tried out École Normale, with the idea of becoming a teacher, but left even before the first day of class was over,” he says. He clearly hadn’t yet been bitten by the teaching bug. Pedrazzini instead opted for languages in night school. “Given the many hours I’d spent at punk-rock clubs in London, my English was pretty good.” He then studied sociology and anthropology at the University of Lausanne, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 1982. This was followed by a PhD in architecture from EPFL in 1994, where he completed a thesis “almost without realizing it, or at least without it really being my goal.”

Is that to say Pedrazzini earned a PhD despite himself? To understand what he means, some context is needed: “Back when I got my bachelor’s degree, students weren’t as encouraged as they are now to go on to graduate school.” But Pedrazzini received an advanced research grant to continue the work he’d started in Switzerland on studying cultural innovation in Algeria, Mexico and Venezuela. He ended up spending five years in Caracas to examine its urban transformation and its barrios, or informal settlements. This is the research that eventually became his PhD thesis, supervised by Michel Bassand, a Swiss pioneer in urban sociology.

Street sports and criminals

In listening to Pedrazzini think back on his career, what stands out are the empathy and curiosity that have underpinned his work. His interests span alternative music, street sports and socially excluded groups – including criminals. He reaches out to people without judging them. “My work involves giving a voice to people who aren’t ‘defended’ in scientific research,” he says. In exchange, these individuals open up to Pedrazzini and share insights that would otherwise remain hidden. “I worked a lot with gangs in Caracas and spoke in particular with one gang member who knew the city inside and out,” says Pedrazzini. “He had a better grasp of the city’s inner workings than any university researcher.”

The topic of informal settlements in city settings – including how the residents of those settlements have resisted the shock of urban planning and, more broadly, how they manage to continue “living in emergency” – has guided Pedrazzini throughout his research. And there’s also the topic of punk, which he views as “the art of collapse.” Punk, and the associated concept of punkspace that Pedrazzini invented to describe the world of demolished objects, “are the real common denominator in my career.”

Like a nesting doll

“Living in Emergency” was also the name of a class that Pedrazzini taught at EPFL. “Settlements designed to be temporary – refugee camps and favelas, for example – often end up becoming cities in their own right,” he says. The support they require from engineers and architects is “more political than technical” and entails “translating what people experience on the ground.” Pedrazzini similarly saw his role as a teacher as being a “translator” of popular knowledge. His lectures, which incorporated insights from those with on-the-ground experience, were structured a little like a nesting doll: “On the inside was an analytical review of the development of urban habitats, but I didn’t put the science on a pedestal.” He backed his statements with numerous images and progressed at a pace that combined “flow and slow.”

Pedrazzini is happy to have been named the best teacher for his section despite his unconventional courses and unrestrained manner. But he adds that “the fact that I was retiring probably played a role.” He plans to spend his retirement delving deeper into his key research themes on an unpaid basis. For instance, he intends to explore the concept of architecture and resistance, working as part of an association of urban researchers in Switzerland, Spain and Venezuela. He also wants to help identify the new societal and spatial constructs of modern cities, pulling together concepts from Marxism, postcolonial studies and materialist feminism. “It’s a never-ending job, but one that’s useful given what’s happening in the world today,” he says.