Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Swiss Confederation officially established the institution on the 7th of February 1854. It began its first lectures on the 16th of October 1855 at various scattered sites throughout Zurich.
Architect Gottfried Semper designed the structure in a unique neoclassical style while working alongside Gustav Zeuner. The design features bold massings with rusticated ground levels and giant orders above derived partly from Andrea Palladio and Donato Bramante.
Tuition fees remain subsidized by Swiss federal taxes at CHF 730 per semester for local students. Foreign students will pay triple that amount starting autumn 2025.
In 2024 the center deployed the Alps Supercomputer containing over 10,000 H100 Nvidia GPUs. This makes it one of the largest academic supercomputers globally.
More than twenty Nobel laureates have either studied here or won prizes for work done at ETH Zurich. Didier Queloz received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2019 as the most recent recipient.