The Visitor Center on the Novartis Campus in Basel was designed by the Swiss architect Peter Märkli. The design contract for the building goes back to an architectural competition from the year 2003. The building was constructed in the years 2004 to 2006. With the design of this building the architect Peter Märkli made an important contribution to the contemporary architectural debate in Switzerland. The building appears as a classic and representative administration building of an international company, characterized by high quality materials and meticulous craftsmanship.
The architectural design had to be conceived according to the strict specifications of the master plan by Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani. So the architect was obliged to create a volume with an eaves height of 22 meters. Further more the maser plan called for an arcade basement of 6 meters heigth to be aligned with the square. Within this difficult setting Peter Märkli responded to the specifications with a circumferential band of metal lamellae. This band runs all around the retracted office floor and results in a compact and forceful building volume. The delicate and shiny profiles of the glass façade are in contrast to the flat ceiling travertine end panels.