A city changes continuously. Social, economic, and technological changes provide the impetus or create the pressure under which the architecture of the city is replaced. Such processes can be slow—hardly perceptible over the span of a human life—or vehement and radical, when within just a few years little remains of the original substance or even the urban structure apart from place names. In addition to the complex array of diverse factors that determine these processes, this semester we want to focus on a specific aspect: construction. What role does a building’s mode of construction play in the process of these changes? Or, more concretely: What do the typological and structural characteristics of a building mean at the moment of external change? Do new programmatic requirements inevitably lead to a complete replacement of the building fabric, or can buildings be reshaped so that they are suitable for a new program? We pose this question using several exemplary buildings on the Klybeck site in Basel, the historic location of CIBA, the “Chemical Industry Basel.” Do the structural shifts in the chemical-pharmaceutical industry, which in 2019 led to a change of ownership of the site—from two companies in the fields of chemistry and life science to two investors in the real estate business—result in a complete redevelopment, or can production and office buildings, parking garages, and cafeterias survive in altered form and play a new, identity-forming role in the newly developing neighborhood? For a long time Basel—quite unlike other Swiss cities—was shaped significantly by industry: the Council of Basel (1431–1449), for example, triggered a development in paper production whose traces are still visible today. The textile industry, especially silk processing, was decisive for Basel’s economic and political significance. Associated with this was the development of dyes, from which the chemical industry emerged in the late 19th century and especially in the 20th century. This, in turn, formed the basis for the development of Novartis, which together with Hoffmann-La Roche counts among the world’s leading companies in the life-science sector. On the Klybeck site, this development can be read directly in the urban structures and in the buildings. Originally located on the edge of the city, downstream along the Rhine, where wastewater could be discharged directly into the river (the practice known as “Hollandisierung,” continued until the 1980s) and where the odors caused less nuisance compared to preindustrial production sites in the middle of the city, the city grew around the site over time. As Novartis—created from the merger of Sandoz and Ciba-Geigy—concentrated on research and development in the life-science sector and abandoned or sold production in the chemical sector, the company’s site on the left bank of the Rhine was consolidated and expanded within the framework of the master plan designed by Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani. This rendered CIBA’s historic site obsolete and it was subsequently sold in the summer of 2019. Over decades, the architecture firm Suter + Suter designed a wide variety of buildings for CIBA that give the site its character. The production buildings, laboratory buildings, cafeterias, a parking garage, and several office buildings are witnesses to Basel’s industrial history. Can these buildings be reshaped so that they become parts of a new neighborhood?

The topic C (focus on constructive detail) was set by Prof. Christ / Prof. Gantenbein