Prof. Dr. Heinz Berke Anorganisch-chemisches Institut, Universität Zürich

Genius Loci - Locus Genii
Alfred Werner and his New Chemistry Building, Zurich, Rämistrasse 76

A partly serious and partly speculative analysis is attempted to correlate Alfred Werner’s chemical achievements with the locations where his chemical research was carried out. Alfred Werner’s old chemistry laboratory (1892-1909), once located on Rämistrasse also and named by his group the “catacombs”, provided a not too pleasant research environment. Apparently Alfred Werner’s creativity and chemistry spirit did not suffer from this, indicated by the fact that his coordination theory was born in the very early days of his career inspired by a “Flash of Genius” in 1892, before he had done any chemical experiment. However, the years in the “catacombs” were experimentally very productive. They served for confirmation of his theory. From 1909 on, Rämistrasse 76 became the great place, a real “Genius Loci”, where Alfred Werner’s intuition and creativity then culminated. In this building he and his research group discovered the chemically very important phenomenon of chirality of coordination compounds. Chirality of coordination compounds could have been discovered already at the times of the “catacombs”, but apparently was overlooked then. Based on his chirality and other results Alfred Werner got Nobel Prize in 1913, which was to a great extent due to the spirit of the Nobel Laureate’s place, Rämistrasse 76, the “Locus Genii”.