History and background of Stäheli's bookshops

1934, Kurt Stäheli establishes, together with Curt Gretener, Kurt Stäheli & Co, Booksellers, as a literary bookshop and meeting-place at Bahnhofstrasse 70, in the heart of Zurich, selling German language books only at that time.

As from about 1939 books from the United States and Great Britain are being imported and, by the early fifties, Stähelis had the largest stock of books in English in the whole of Switzerland. 1954 the first comprehensive exhibition of English language books in Switzerland is organised by Stähelis at the Zurich Kongresshaus.

In the forties, a subscription agency is added to the bookshop, arranging subscriptions to any journal and magazine published world-wide – a small selection is offered on this site.

1972 Interlingua is born out of a one-week exhibition of English language teaching material at Hotel Carlton Elite with then a staff of only two booksellers, and from the very beginning books and other media for the learning and teaching of English as well as for any other foreign language are on offer.

1974, sees the relocation of Interlingua to its present site at Weinplatz 4/5 (next to Pastorini’s toyshop), where today Silvia Fust is in charge of a staff of 12, catering for all your wishes. 1984 the premises undergo complete reconstruction and as from 1985 computerisation is being introduced step-by-step.

In 1993 our general shop in Bahnhofstrasse is being turned into a very successful all-English bookshop, which, unfortunately, at the end of January 1999 is sold, due to complete refurbishment of the premises. Since then, we are concentrating even more specifically on the supply of language teaching material to schools, language training centres as well as private individuals.

Autumn 1999 saw the start of www.staehelibooks.ch, the round-the-clock shopping facility for the 21st century. Here we can offer you some 8000 courses and individual titles for the learning and teaching of English, German and French, as well as about 1.8 million general publications in English and German .

This site has been completely re-designed in October 2004 and with now about 3.25 million titles represents the largest online bookshop in Switzerland.

Over the years it became more and more difficult for our customers to drive up to the shop at Weinplatz to pick up the books they needed. So, when in summer 2006 acces was no longer possible during the afternoons, we decided to relocate Interlingua to our headquarters at Bederstrasse, a few tram stops from the site we had occupied for the past 32 years. A spacious shop, parking facilities and a vast choice of books make it an oasis for language teachers in search of new material.