An extinct species

For years, there has been a red British telephone box in my neighbourhood in District 3. You walk past it every day without giving it a second thought. It was simply there, somehow out of place, run-down, covered in stickers, with broken windows. And yet I kept asking myself: why is this telephone box here?

Now it’s suddenly lit up again. Freshly painted, tidied up, it stands there almost proudly. I stop and take a closer look.

Behind the transformation lies the RE:CALL_1M2 project. Three initiators from the architectural practice jea. have taken on the box. They researched, spoke to neighbours, repaired it and began to rethink it. “The booth was just standing there, looking rather forlorn and serving no purpose. At the same time, we realised that it has a very distinct spatial quality,” says the team. “It was slowly fading away, just as many things in everyday life lose their significance. The moment something stops working, you start to perceive it differently.” The current exhibition plays precisely on this shift in perception.

With the exhibition extinct species, the cabin itself becomes a work of art. huber.huber are collaborating with jea. on a project at the intersection of art and micro-architecture. From the outside, everything looks familiar. But upon looking inside, it becomes clear that something has changed. It seems as though the skeleton of the telephone box has been reconstructed inside. As a result, the box is no longer accessible. “It is no longer infrastructure, but an object that needs to be interpreted,” says the team, describing the intervention. The booth no longer functions. It is precisely this that alters our perspective. An everyday object becomes something to be observed. A relic. Or perhaps more a reminder of something that no longer exists in this form.

During the renovation, the organisers strike up conversations with people from the neighbourhood. They discuss, reminisce and speculate. This leads to a survey. And suddenly it becomes clear that the booth was never just a mere fixture. It is a landmark, a place of remembrance, and for some, a ‘piece of England’. Others associate personal stories with it. And then there are the ideas. A book exchange, a notice board, a meeting place, a space for reflection. I realise: the booth has long since ceased to belong solely to itself, but also to the stories surrounding it.

It is precisely through this dialogue with the neighbourhood that the project continues to evolve. The cabin is not a finished work of art, but a constantly changing space. As part of an exhibition cycle, it will be taken over by various artists over the course of a year. Each intervention lasts six weeks and brings a new perspective to the small space. “It is important to us that the booth remains a small presence in everyday life and continues to evolve through various contributions,” says the team.

At the start, I wondered why the phone box was here at all. The project team looked into that too. It was originally put up as a publicity stunt for a car garage. The garage has long since disappeared. The box has remained. My curiosity about its history has thus been satisfied – and at the same time reawakened. Especially now, when so much is changing in the neighbourhood, I particularly like that. This stubbornness, this staying put. It has almost something defiant about it. Something rebellious.

The current exhibition Extinct Species is part of this cycle and runs as part of the annual programme from December 2025 to December 2026. The next exhibition will be curated by Cristian Zabalaga and will open on 19 May at 6.00 pm with a public vernissage.

Anyone with an idea for the small exhibition space is welcome to submit a project. We are looking for contributions that engage with the space and interpret it in their own way: Submit an idea.

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The telephone box is located here: Corner of Nussbaumstrasse 27 / Saumstrasse 11, 8003 Zurich
More about the project on Instagram: @re.call_1m2
Next opening: 19 May, 6.00 pm