Office building Roche near Basel by Christ & Gantenbein

The exhibition showcase of modern architecture for the administrative needs of the pharmaceutical company Roche in Basel is quite well-known. In the campus that is forbidden to the public, almost every significant figure in the architectural field has its realization. However, Roche also commissions young promising firms, one of which is the firm Christ & Gantenbein, that completed the administrative building B10 along with the technical building B16 in the municipality of Grenzach-Wyhlen on the outskirts of Basel in the middle of last year. The most important task for the architects was to integrate both new buildings into the 'family' of Roche buildings with their simple stereometric composition, linking back to the modernist line of Rudolf Otto Salvisberg from the 1930s. His system of horizontal divisions of buildings into bright concrete strips and dark window bands was then adopted by the entire post-war generation of Swiss architects and, in more recent history, also by architects Herzog & de Meuron in the Roche skyscraper.
The new three-story building by Christ & Gantenbein clearly fits into the rectangular campus of Roche between building B44, the cafeteria to the south, and building B59 to the north. The technical building B16 is located in close proximity to the administrative complex. The office building B10 is composed of two parts: a strip façade and glazed sections. The window bands consist of 60 cm thick concrete, with their height increasing with each additional floor, responding to the increasing daylight in the upper floors. The proportion of openings in the façade is conceived in relation to the inner and outer space. While the ground floor is oriented toward the nearby surroundings, the upper window bands relate to distant views of the landscape. A generous loggia is situated in the center of Roche's campus. The office building is reduced here to a bare structure. A spacious entrance is created on the ground floor, while the upper floors offer quiet spots in the fresh air.