(b Zurich, 7 Dec 1858; d Zurich, 10 June 1942). Swiss architect and teacher. He studied at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zurich (1876–9), under Julius Jakob Stadler (1828–1904) and Georg Lasius (b 1835), and in 1879–80 he attended courses on stone sculpture at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs, Geneva. He completed his practical experience in architecture in 1880–82 under Benjamin Recordon (1845–90) and then travelled in Italy (1883–4). From 1895 to 1900 Gull was chief architect to the city of Zurich. His first public buildings were designed in a neo-Renaissance style; examples include the post office (1886–8), Lucerne, and the Lavater school (1896–7), Zurich. In his most important work, the Schweizerisches Landesmuseum (1893–8) in Zurich, he set aside symmetry and stylistic unity to produce a free grouping of individual buildings in a castle-like complex, using a style derived from Late Gothic and early Renaissance models. This delight in picturesque silhouettes is also seen in his private houses, for example the Villa Schindler-Huber (1899–1901), Zurich. He rebuilt the extremely slender spires of the Predigerkirche, Zurich (1899–1900), and the church at Turbenthal (1903–4), and he remodelled the façade and cloister of the Fraumünsterkirche in Gothic Revival style (1900–01 and 1911–12). Gull made generous use of statuary in his buildings: for example there are small half-figures on the window jambs of the Stadthaus (1898–1900) and crowning elements on the Urania observatory (1911), both in Zurich. From 1900 to 1929 Gull was a professor at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zurich; he became President of the Eidgenössische Kunstkommission (1903–6) and was a founder-member of the Kunstgesellschaft, Zurich. Later work included an urban plan (1902–10) for the centre of Zurich, which incorporated Renaissance-style squares and public buildings with terraces and stairs down to arcades beside the river; only a small part of the plan was executed (1903–4 and 1917–19). He also extended (1914–25) Gottfried Semper’s building for the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zurich, with wings and an oval dome in a neo-Renaissance style. Gull’s public buildings made him one of the most important exponents of late historicism in Switzerland.

• Gull, Gustav
  • Kissling, Richard
  • Roth: (1) Emil Roth
  • Switzerland, §II, 1: Architecture: Gothic period to the late 19th century, c 1200–c 1900
  • Zurich, §1(ii): History and urban development, c 1700 and after
  • Zurich, §2(ii): Art life and organization, c 1700 and after