Interviewee:
Linda Lochmann-Sulindro
Daughter of Herianto Sulindro

Introduction

Herianto Sulindro (Kho Lin Hek, born 1928 in Sokaraja, East Java, Indonesia, passed away in March 2025) was a postmodern Chinese-Indonesian architect and urban planner. He received his first architectural training at the Institute of Technology Bandung (ITB) in Indonesia before continuing his studies in Delft, the Netherlands, and Berlin, Germany. There he began his professional career as an architect and urban planner. He later worked for the city of Zurich for three decades and also took on architectural projects in Indonesia, Brazil and Switzerland.  

In the second interview article, SUAVEART talks to Herianto’s only daughter, Linda Lochmann-Sulindro (Lindawati Kho). In the past activities in 2023-2025, SUAVEART have researched the migration journey, your father’s cultural identity and experiences as part of the Chinese-Indonesian diaspora in Europe. (Article I)

We would now like to concentrate on his professional life. 

In more than three decades, Herianto has built a remarkable career as an architect and urban planner. The next Q&A session explores his work, influence, and how his approach to urban design integrates nature, community, and culture.  

1) Could you start by describing his professional life – what a typical work routine looked like and what work ethics or values he valued most? Where does his passion for architecture and landscape come from? And what kept his motivation to remain loyal to this profession for more than thirty years?

My understanding of my father’s professional life comes from a few long conversations we shared, particularly when my mother was traveling to Indonesia. During those quieter periods, he spoke openly about his work as an architect and urban planner, and about what truly mattered to him. His daily routine was disciplined and steady: office hours dedicated to public planning projects, followed by long evenings and weekends spent drawing, refining plans, and thinking through ideas at home. Work, for him, was never confined to a timetable—it was a way of living and thinking.

During his studies in Delft and Berlin, and later through his internship and professional work in Hamburg, he gradually realized that individual buildings alone did not satisfy his curiosity. What fascinated him more was the larger system: how buildings relate to streets, how neighborhoods breathe, and how cities grow in dialogue with their landscapes. This was the moment when his focus shifted decisively toward urban planning and landscape-oriented neighborhood, rather than interior design or individual architecture. He was less interested in isolated objects and more invested in relationships—between people, spaces, and nature.

While supporting curatorial research with Yipei Lee of SUAVEART, and Sharo Liang in London, I had the opportunity to review his archival materials. Old city maps of Zurich, carefully rolled drawings, and photographs stored in large cardboard boxes revealed the consistency of his vision. Again and again, his projects emphasized streets, public spaces, green corridors, and parks. Urban planning, for him, was not a technical exercise but a cultural and ecological one.

Nature was always central to his work. He consciously integrated plants and open landscapes into his designs, treating greenery as structural rather than decorative. The colors and formal language in his drawings carried subtle references to his roots in Indonesia, combined with elements influenced by Chinese aesthetics. This sensitivity can be traced back to his childhood: he grew up in a village surrounded by expansive natural landscapes, an experience that shaped his spatial thinking and left a permanent mark on his values.

Although I never directly asked why he stayed with the same city planning office for more than thirty years, the answer feels evident. He was known among colleagues as reliable, loyal, and deeply committed. His promotion to adjunct was a source of quiet pride, not because of status, but because it acknowledged the care and responsibility he invested in his work.

Even outside his official role, he never stopped practicing. Before and after retirement, he designed residential projects across Switzerland, as well as for family members in Brazil and friends in Indonesia. Much of this work happened late at night or over entire weekends, in a small workspace under the roof. His long-term loyalty to the profession was sustained by something simple and rare: he genuinely loved architecture and urban planning, and he lived that love with unwavering dedication for more than three decades.

2) Were there any influential figures in architecture or urban landscape design who shaped his thinking during his education and professional life?

In what ways did their ideas and practices inform his own architectural and urban planning approach?

Throughout his education and professional career, my father’s architectural and urban planning practice was shaped less by distant icons than by direct, sustained exchanges with a small number of influential figures. These encounters unfolded in distinct phases, each leaving a different imprint on how he thought about cities, landscapes, and architecture as an integrated whole.

In the period following his formal studies, Kurt Dübbers and, in particular, Herta Hammerbacher played an important role in his professional environment. Hammerbacher’s work offered him a deeper understanding of how architecture, landscape, and public space can be conceived as a continuous system rather than as separate disciplines. This perspective resonated strongly with his own interests and later surfaced in his careful, context-sensitive approach to urban spaces, where green structures and public realms were treated as fundamental components of design.

During his internship years, Otto Risse and Hans Gerber had a formative influence on his methodological and creative development. Working closely with them, he refined his ability to balance functional requirements, structural logic, and urban context. This phase strengthened his analytical mindset and taught him to see architectural problems not as isolated challenges, but as interconnected layers within a broader spatial and social framework.

In the subsequent stages of his professional practice, Adolf Böhringer and Werner Hebebrand further expanded his approach through hands-on engagement with real projects. Under their influence, theoretical knowledge and design principles were tested against practical constraints and lived realities. This experience helped him translate abstract concepts into concrete, independent architectural and urban planning solutions, grounding his work firmly in practice without losing its conceptual clarity.

Taken together, these successive encounters contributed to a gradual and continuous expansion of his professional competence. Rather than adopting a single stylistic lineage, he developed an approach shaped by the interplay of theory, practice, and mentorship. The influence of these figures can be understood as a framework rather than a formula, one that supported his emergence as an independent architect and urban planner with a strong sensitivity to landscape, context, and long-term urban relationships.

All of the personalities and professional contexts mentioned are documented in the publication Working in Progress: Reimagine the Identity of Urban Spectrum, based on the research and descriptions compiled by Yipei Lee.

3) I understand that photographing streets was one of the creative processes he regularly used in his professional practice. What was he looking for in these photographs, and how did he translate them into his urban planning and architectural work?

Beyond photography, were there other key tools or methods he consistently relied on to guide his practice?

That is indeed a perceptive question. Photographing streets was a central and recurring creative process in his professional life. For him, the street was not merely an infrastructural element but a living spatial system. Through careful observation and documentation of road spaces, he analyzed patterns of movement, car traffic, public transportation, and the rhythms of everyday urban life. These images allowed him to slow down reality, to look again, and to understand how space was actually used rather than how it was assumed to function.

The photographs became analytical tools rather than visual references alone. They helped him assess spatial proportions, points of congestion, transitions between public and private realms, and the relationship between built form and movement. He would then translate these observations into urban planning and architectural drawings, using them to inform decisions about street widths, crossings, open spaces, and the placement of buildings within the urban fabric.

From the 1960s through the 1990s, his entire working process was carried out by hand. He relied on traditional drafting instruments, rulers, set squares, compasses, and pens, to develop his designs with precision and clarity. Manual drawing was not simply a technical necessity; it was a way of thinking. The slow, tactile process of drawing allowed him to reflect, adjust, and refine ideas as they emerged on paper.

In his later years, he made tentative attempts to adopt digital tools such as CAD and basic architectural software. However, his engagement with these technologies remained limited, largely due to his lack of formal training in computer science. Despite this, his core methodology never shifted. Careful observation, manual analysis, and hand drawing remained the foundation of his practice, guiding his work until the end.

4) A defining characteristic of his work seems to be the integration of natural elements into urban form. To what extent did he and his team pursue this integration, and are there specific architectural or urban projects from his career that best exemplify this mindset?

The integration of natural elements into urban form was one of the most consistent principles in my father’s work. At the same time, he was acutely aware of the strict building regulations and planning guidelines that shaped architectural and urban projects, particularly in large-scale infrastructure and public developments. Working within these constraints, he sought ways to introduce greenery, open space, and ecological thinking as structural components rather than as superficial additions.

One project that clearly reflects this approach is the proposal for Rosengartenstrasse, which was intended to extend over the Hardbrücke. The concept was developed by my father and aimed to transform a heavily trafficked urban corridor into a more layered space that balanced infrastructure with landscaped elements. Despite its ambition, the proposal was rejected in a public vote in the late 1970s. Even so, it remains an important example of how he envisioned the coexistence of mobility, urban form, and nature.

Another significant project is the Hardbrücke itself, in which my father played a major role toward its completion. While not all aspects of the original vision were realized, parts of the project were implemented and demonstrate his effort to integrate natural elements into a large-scale urban structure. Green spaces and transitional zones were conceived as mediators between infrastructure and the surrounding city, softening the impact of the built environment.

I cannot provide precise dates for these projects, as I was still in school at the time. Much of my understanding comes from later conversations with his former colleagues, including Paul Stopper and Hanspeter Müller, who shared insights into both the design intentions and the collaborative processes behind these works.

Taken together, these projects illustrate his belief that nature must play an active role in shaping urban environments. For him, integrating landscape into the city was not an aesthetic choice alone, but a necessary condition for creating livable, humane, and resilient urban spaces.

5) Switzerland, where he spent much of his professional life, is often recognized for balancing urban development with nature conservation.

From your perspective, why did the public and government at the time choose to prioritize the preservation of natural spaces rather than pursue full-scale urbanization?

In the 1970s and 1980s, I was still in school and not directly involved in urban planning debates. However, I clearly remember the conversations I had with my father during that period, when he was working as an urban planner for the City of Zurich. At the time, he worked under the direction of Gerhard B. Sidler (1928–2015), the director of the Zurich City Planning Office, whose influence was both professional and ideological.

My father was frequently responsible for executing planning projects in close coordination with the Zurich government. He held Sidler in particularly high regard, largely because Sidler placed strong emphasis on environmental responsibility, long-term sustainability, and the protection of natural spaces. These values were not abstract ideals but practical planning principles that were repeatedly integrated into concrete projects. As a result, decisions were often made to limit urban expansion and preserve landscapes rather than maximize building density.

Although my father rarely interacted directly with politicians, the mediation between planners and policymakers, primarily through Sidler, was crucial. This structured exchange allowed professional expertise to inform political decision-making. It created a framework in which ecological concerns could be articulated in planning language that governments and the public could understand and support.

From an architectural and urban planning perspective, the approaches of that period were already grounded in the belief that development and conservation are not mutually exclusive. Urban growth was seen as something that needed to be carefully calibrated, with natural systems treated as assets rather than obstacles. This philosophy is evident in the projects my father worked on with Sidler, where ecological considerations and sustainable solutions were embedded into the design process from the outset.

Looking back, it becomes clear that Switzerland’s commitment to preserving natural spaces is not a recent trend. It was shaped decades ago by planners and architects who understood their responsibility toward the environment. Figures such as Gerhard B. Sidler demonstrate how professional integrity and ecological awareness helped establish a culture of thoughtful, sustainable urban development, one that continues to define Switzerland today..

6) What challenges arise when municipalities are involved in the design of urban projects? To what extent does the integration of nature into urban planning benefit both local residents and biodiversity?

What lessons can contemporary architects and planners learn from his methods?

My father, Herianto Sulindro, was a deeply committed architect whose professional life was largely devoted to improving the quality of urban living. While he was not directly engaged in participatory or political processes, he worked in close coordination with his superior, Gerhard B. Sidler. Through this collaboration, he gained insight into municipal priorities, regulatory constraints, and public concerns, which allowed him to respond thoughtfully to the complexities of city-led projects.

One of the main challenges of working with municipalities lies in balancing long-term spatial quality with short-term practical demands. Urban projects must respond to political expectations, budget limitations, and technical regulations, often at the same time. Within these constraints, my father focused on clarity and functionality. In particular, he paid close attention to traffic organization, aiming to prevent congestion and long vehicle queues. The careful planning of traffic flows and the provision of adequate parking were not treated as purely technical issues, but as factors that directly affected residents’ everyday experience of the city.

At the same time, his strong affinity for nature shaped his approach to urban planning. He consistently sought to integrate elements that supported biodiversity and human well-being. Parks, green corridors, and thoughtfully designed pavements were used to soften dense urban areas and create spaces for encounter, movement, and rest. These natural elements benefited residents by improving microclimates, reducing stress, and encouraging outdoor activity, while also providing habitats and continuity for urban ecosystems.

His work demonstrates that the integration of nature into cities is not a luxury, but a necessity for sustainable urban life. This mindset is evident in the districts and sites he helped shape, including District 10 in Höngg, as well as areas around Stadelhofen Station, Bahnhofstrasse, and the border with Zollikon. In these contexts, urban infrastructure and landscape were conceived as interdependent rather than opposing forces.

For contemporary architects and planners, his methods offer several lessons. First, careful analysis and respect for everyday use are essential when working within municipal frameworks. Second, environmental considerations should be embedded from the beginning of the planning process, not added later as decoration. Finally, his work reminds us that even within strict regulations, it is possible to design cities that are both functional and humane, places where infrastructure, nature, and daily life coexist in a balanced and enduring way..

7) Urban planning often unfolds over many years, sometimes even decades, between the first drawing and actual realization. Among the projects your father worked on, was there a district in Zurich whose development process was particularly complex? 

More broadly, which phase of planning and design has most strongly shaped Zurich’s current urban character? And how do you personally view these long-term processes of urban formation?

I cannot answer this question in precise detail, as I was not directly involved in the individual planning, negotiation, and decision-making processes. Much of my understanding comes from later media coverage and from conversations with former colleagues, including Paul Stopper, as well as my friend Hanspeter Müller, who provided valuable insights into the design intentions and creative processes behind these works.

Based on these sources, I can outline some broader urban planning observations.

Urban planning is inherently a long-term endeavor. The path from an initial sketch to built reality is shaped by political decisions, legal frameworks, public opinion, and shifting social needs. These layers of influence mean that projects often extend across decades and multiple generations of planners. Continuity, patience, and institutional memory therefore become just as important as design talent.

As mentioned earlier, many of my father’s projects were realized in districts such as Höngg, Aussersihl, and Oerlikon, as well as around Stadelhofen Station and along Bahnhofstrasse. These areas are particularly illustrative because they continue to define Zurich’s urban structure today. They represent zones where functional densification, transportation infrastructure, and architectural design were developed in close coordination over long periods of time.

Rather than pointing to a single “most complex” district, I would say that the true complexity lies in the cumulative nature of these planning phases. Much of what we recognize as Zurich’s contemporary urban character stems from the post-war and late 20th-century planning period, when infrastructure expansion, mobility systems, and controlled densification were addressed together. The effects of those decisions are still clearly legible in the city’s spatial organization today.

On a personal level, I see these long-term urban formation processes as both demanding and deeply responsible. They remind us that urban planning is never about immediate results, but about shaping conditions for future generations. What is built, or deliberately left unbuilt, becomes part of a city’s long memory. In that sense, my father’s work, like that of many planners of his time, continues to quietly structure everyday life in Zurich, long after the original drawings were completed.

8) Urban planning includes considerations of transportation, residential areas, school districts, commercial zones, industrial zones, green parks, and public spaces.

What social forces or historical changes in Switzerland led to large-scale urban integration and new development in the 1960s and 1990s? And in which areas or types of projects is Herianto’s contribution most clearly visible?

That’s a very good question.

From the 1960s to the 1990s, Switzerland, and Zurich in particular, underwent profound social and spatial transformation. Population growth, rising mobility, and economic restructuring placed new demands on housing, transportation infrastructure, and public space. At the same time, urban planning increasingly had to address road safety, functional zoning, and, from the late 1970s onward, ecological compatibility. These forces together led to large-scale urban integration projects and the reconfiguration of existing districts.

From a personal standpoint, however, my perception of these changes at the time was limited. I attended kindergarten and primary school at the Deaf and Secondary School for the Deaf in Zurich-Wollishofen. In my early years, I was transported by an organized school bus and only began using public transport independently around the age of ten or twelve. As a result, the broader urban transformations were not something I consciously experienced in daily life.

It was only later, through revisiting my father’s photographs from the 1960s to the 1990s, that I began to understand how these processes unfolded across the city. His work documents a period of transition in which urban integration focused heavily on improving traffic organization, reducing congestion and accident risks, and creating clearer spatial structures. Over time, these objectives were increasingly combined with the inclusion of green spaces and biodiversity-related considerations.

One particularly vivid example comes from the area around Frankental, especially near the former Frankental tram terminus and the intersection at Frankentalstrasse. As a child, I was occasionally allowed to accompany my father there while he photographed the site and worked on concrete planning proposals. Years later, during research conducted together with Yipei Lee and Sharo Liang, I recognized these same ideas in archival building plans. With the help of his former colleague Paul Stopper, we learned about the urban planning logic behind the project and how it was ultimately realized.

This example clearly illustrates where Herianto’s contribution is most evident: in functionally effective, carefully analyzed urban projects that addressed real infrastructural needs while shaping the city in a long-lasting way. His work is less about singular landmark buildings and more about the quiet but decisive integration of mobility, spatial order, and environmental awareness into Zurich’s everyday urban fabric.

9) In over 30 years, he went through various phases in Switzerland’s national planning management and worked on projects in several countries, each with unique landscapes, natures and regulations.

How did he respond to these shifts, and how did he adapt his practice to such varied contexts?

Unfortunately, I cannot assess every aspect of this question in precise detail. Looking back, however, it is clear that the planning and construction environment changed continuously over the decades. Building regulations, legal requirements, and the division of responsibilities between municipal and state authorities were repeatedly revised, placing new demands on architectural and urban planning practice. Traces of these shifts can be found in newspaper clippings and documents preserved in the city archives, which reflect broader debates around planning governance and regulation.

These evolving conditions required a high degree of adaptability. From my perspective, my father responded by carefully aligning his planning work with the prevailing legal and institutional frameworks, while remaining committed to design clarity and functional quality. Rather than resisting regulatory change, he treated it as a set of parameters within which thoughtful solutions could still be developed. This balance between compliance and design integrity became a defining feature of his practice.

Working across national contexts introduced yet another layer of complexity. For projects outside Switzerland, my father typically developed the architectural and construction plans from Zurich. He relied on close collaboration with family members and trusted local partners who were familiar with regional regulations, construction practices, and administrative procedures. Among them were his nephews, including Hoo Shen Witarsa in Brazil, his older sister Kartika Sulindro (Kho, Siok Lie) in Jakarta, and a close Indonesian friend in Magelang. These collaborators handled on-site communication with authorities and construction companies, translating his plans into locally viable processes.

A concrete example from the family archive dates to the 1980s and shows my father in discussion with his sister Kartika Sulindro over a residential project in Jakarta. Standing over a model, they reviewed the design and planning steps in detail. She later implemented his instructions in cooperation with local builders and officials. This image encapsulates his working method: careful preparation, clear conceptual guidance, and respect for local knowledge.

Overall, his ability to adapt rested on observation, trust, and structure. By understanding regulatory contexts, working through reliable intermediaries, and maintaining a consistent design philosophy, he was able to realize projects across different legal, cultural, and environmental settings without losing the core principles of his architectural practice.

10) With such extensive professional experience, how were immigrants like your father recognized for their contributions within their host societies? In what ways has this recognition influenced the perception of the Asian diaspora over time?

Herianto Sulindro received recognition primarily through the quality and consistency of his academic and professional work in Europe, particularly in Germany and Switzerland. Rather than being framed through his background as an immigrant, his contributions were acknowledged through his expertise, reliability, and long-term commitment to public-oriented architectural and urban planning projects. This form of recognition was quiet but substantial, grounded in professional trust and peer respect rather than public visibility.

According to recollections shared by his colleagues, and later on including architectural scholar Eduard Kögel’s research, my father was regarded as a knowledgeable and dependable professional whose work spoke for itself. Within planning offices and academic contexts, his role was defined by competence rather than origin. This professional environment allowed him to participate as an equal, contributing to collective projects that shaped urban spaces and planning discourse.

At the same time, his sustained presence and achievements contributed to a broader, intergenerational shift in how the Chinese-Indonesian and Asian diaspora were perceived. His career demonstrated that migrants could be not only part of the labor force, but also active contributors to intellectual, cultural, and scientific development in their host societies. This visibility, even when understated, helped strengthen the self-confidence of later generations within the diaspora.

The ongoing research and curatorial work developed through the SUAVEART project further highlights this intergenerational dimension. By situating my father’s practice within a larger historical and cultural framework, the project reveals how individual professional trajectories intersect with broader narratives of migration, belonging, and contribution. In this sense, recognition is not limited to formal titles or public honors, but is also preserved through documentation, research, and collective memory.

Over time, such examples would help shift perceptions of the Asian diaspora in Europe, from being seen primarily as temporary or peripheral participants to being recognized as integral, long-term contributors to the shaping of urban, cultural, and intellectual life.

Herianto Sulindro in front of the Deutsche Sporthalle, Berlin (in the late 1950s)

Bahnhofstrasse (Main Station), 1971 — by Su (Herianto Sulindro)

Globus Parking Area, 1976 — by Su (Herianto Sulindro)

Lowenplatz Plan, 1980 — by Su (Herianto Sulindro)

Family House Design in Locarno, 1974 — by Su (Herianto Sulindro)