Hurter was born in Zurich, Switzerland, on the 11th May, 1883, nine months after the marriage of his parents, thirty-year old Swiss mechanic Albert Hurter (senior), and twenty three-year old German Maria Schmid. His first brother, Hugo Hurter, was born in 1884. The family lived in Kreis 5, the working-class ara of Zurich, until 1889 when they moved to the more peaceful Unterstrass; here, another brother, Ernst Hurter, was born, in 1890. Albert Hurter senior became a teacher of drawing for mechanical engineering, and the family eventually settled in a house in Gallusgasse, an alley street in Gallusgasse. During his childhood, Hurter collected stamps. His father's profession stimulated Hurter's interest in art, and he studied architecture in Zurich. During this time he was diagnosed with rhe