100 Days of Lockdown – Part I

January-February
The first time I perk up about the pandemic, which I knew about (but it was always in the background, somewhere else) is in January, in Davos, when a Chinese friend tells me she is stuck in Switzerland, not wanting to return home. From then on I know it is serious, but like prior epidemics, SARS or Ebola, I expect it to stay put “wherever it started”.

I return to New York at the end of January and begin prepping for another trip to Switzerland, when the first major alarm goes off — the Basel Carnival (Basler Fasnacht) is cancelled! I am pretty sure this has never happened in 800 years (well give or take the World Wars). Like most people, we find these precautions a little exaggerated. My friends in Basel speculate that it could be postponed until the Spring. Then slowly but surely, the art world begins to shut down as well: there is news of the Louvre taking a few days off, and Art Basel is up in the air.

March 5
A dinner at the Ambassador’s Residence in honor of the New York Philharmonic, the Coronavirus is on everyone’s mind. The ambassador confides that this might be the last event he hosts in a while. Orders from Bern instruct us to stop handshaking, so to everyone’s great amusement, we “elbow bump” instead. At my table, one of the dinner guests, who runs communications at the Peninsula Hotels, tells stories of emptied out hotels in Hong Kong. I have no idea this will be my last social event in New York, and my last time in Manhattan for a while.

March 7
Governor Cuomo declares a state of emergency as the number of cases jumps again, to 89, including 11 in the Big Apple. I am in in the last stages of planning a trip to Chicago, where I will be introducing architect offices, developers, and museums in the Midwest, to our work at iart (an experience design and engineering studio out of Basel). I decide to stick to my plan and squeeze in the trip, knowing that it might be the last opportunity to meet potential clients in person for some time. So I get on a plane on Monday (March 9), in the midst of mounting uncertainty.

The first few days in Chicago are fairly successful, I meet with possible collaborators. Compared to New York, there seems to be less concern about the pandemic — we still shake hands, talk in close quarters, social niceties that would soon become alien within a week. Come Thursday evening, there is a shift — after my meetings I find myself dining alone, as several friends and colleagues cancel our rendez-vous. Back at the hotel, I read an alarming message from my partner in New York: “get on a plane as soon as possible, New York might be shutting down.” The next and last day in Chicago, the mood is noticeably somber as I wrap up my meetings with a visit to the Graham Foundation.
The Director of the institution gives me a private tour of the current show (showcasing Sergio Prego and Miguel Fisac) and tells me that I will be the last visitor to the space. Earlier that morning, they had decided to close their premises. On the same day, the President declares a national emergency.

March 14
The journey back to New York is surreal, with trains, airports, and planes strangely devoid of crowds.

The plane is not full, but people are clearly scared. The woman in front of me offers wipes, which I gladly accept. The guy across the aisle is going ballistic with his cleaning routine: every 10 minutes he wipes down his seat, and sanitizes his hands if he touches anything. He eats an orange, sanitizes his hands, wipes down the surrounding space. This goes on the entire flight. Back in New York, I am greeted to a surprise package from the ETH Circle, a very high-end piece of luggage! In my email note thanking my Zurich counterparts, I joke that I probably won’t be able to travel until the inaugural ETH Circle event in November. An exaggeration, of course, I think.

Lukas Fitze (iart) is a strategic developer and project manager with a long-standing working relationship with ETH Zurich. Our “man” in New York, Lukas perhaps epitomizes the ETH Ambassador championing the university’s innovative research and creating numerous opportunities for its community.

 
The thing that keeps me busiest at the moment is: My cats.
My favourite app is: Don’t have any favorites, but I use WhatsApp daily and it definitely makes communication easier.
One book or movie I recommend: I thought the TV show Devs raised many important questions.
And if all else fails, my instant pick-me-up is: Running.