<Baloise Headquarters, Basel, 2014–2020, Competition 1st prize

In the center of the headquarters lies a floor-spanning figure, the Kunstétagère, and forms the heart of the building - in the descriptive word, shelf and floor sound together. Exhibition space and staircase, circulation space and recreation area, where one might pause, it forms the direct access to the new large conference and open office levels, where the desks are arranged along the facades. In the superimposed halls in the actual access core, employees are invited to view the artworks of the Baloise Collection from an unprecedented proximity and immediacy.

The headquarters is not only spatially related to its immediate surroundings, but at this point also to Basel, the city of art. The Baloise Group's annual Baloise Art Prize, a commitment to young artists, and exhibitions are presented to the public by a team of curators in the Kunstforum, which has become attractive to a wider public in the new urban premise. A work by Karsten Födinger, winner of the 2012 Baloise Art Prize, was inserted into the façade on Nauenstrasse during construction, where it is visible today. For the first floor and mezzanine, Jeff Wall installed a large work with portraits "Children" (1988.) 

The solitaire of the Baloise headquarters is the smallest of the three buildings in the new Baloise Park ensemble on Aeschengraben. The main façade, which faces an open square, stands out from the side façades by means of curved external glasses that run over two floors. They stretch the façade to a colossal order, and lean forward and belong to double windows. They blur the razor-sharp, abstract separation from the square. The side facades, as well as the facade with the driveway, are articulated by load-bearing cornices and supports made of gray-green cast stone. Here, too, there are double windows in the spaces between. They airily enclose the café and the Kunstforum on the first floor and the spacious workplaces on the upper floors.