The unbroken
The history of Zellweger Park is closely linked to its location on the Aabach river. Already in the 18th century, the slope of this creek was used by the Niederuster Mill.
The real foundation stone for the development of the industrial area was laid by the spinning mill king Heinrich Kunz in 1824, when he built the first large spinning mill on the site of today's park. An artificial pond, with an accompanying canal system, characterized the early image of the area. Over the years, Kunz continued to expand his spinning mill and enlarged the water facilities. In 1892, three artificial ponds and an extensive canal system supplied the company with hydroelectric power. In 1912, the spinning mill, which in the meantime had been in crisis, was sold.
In search of larger premises, the prospering Zellweger Uster AG, which was already 50 years old at the time, moved its operations into the premises of Heinrich Kunz's former large spinning mill in 1925. In the following decades, Zellweger Uster AG developed into one of the world's leading manufacturers of textile machinery and industrial electrical engineering. In 1961, the administrative building designed by the Swiss star architect Roland Rohn was completed, together with the accompanying exhibition pavilion at the Herter pond.
Since 1925, the development of today's Zellweger Park has been closely linked to the history of Zellweger Uster AG. This did not immediately change when the group merged with Luwa AG to form Zellweger Luwa AG in 1993. Switzerland's transformation since the 1980s into a service society is also reflected in the group's development at the Uster site. In addition, Niederuster developed more and more rapidly into a popular residential district.
In 2003, the «Zellweger Uster» business unit, which is domiciled in Uster and specializes in control and measurement systems, was spun off from Zellweger Luwa AG as part of a management buyout and renamed Uster Technologies AG. his company is the new world market leader for textile quality control systems and employs around 550 people, a large proportion of whom work in Zellweger Park.
In the same year, Zellweger Park AG was founded, which took over the entire industrial site in Uster from Zellweger Luwa AG. The vision for the transformation of the former industrial site into a lively living and working neighbourhood was developed in 2005 and has since been consistently implemented, step by step.