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PE: So you want to know about my experiences?
SCH: Yes, I’m sure you know a thing or two, as you witnessed many milestones in Burckhardt’s history over the past decades.
CI: How and when did you join Burckhardt?
PE: I joined the company in 1968 as a structural draftsman. At that time, Martin Burckhardt was the boss, together with Karl Eckert and Edi Bürgin. Our office was on Peter Merian-Strasse in Gellert and we were still called Burckhardt Architekten SIA. As far as I know, Guido Doppler also started at the same time. He came from the architecture firm Conrad Müller and Martin brought him in to help with finances, bookkeeping, and accounting. Martin was not so strong in these areas – or simply had no interest in them.
I myself mainly did drawing work. This was also the phase in which Mr. Jacottet, the top guy at Sandoz at that time, wanted an indoor swimming pool next to his outdoor pool in Reinach. As a result, everyone – especially those at Geigy – wanted their own indoor pool as well. So, in the beginning I designed a lot of swimming pools. And subsequently was appointed as the construction site manager for them. For the Muttenz indoor pool, for example. That was all in the early days and then came the 1970s…
CI: We have already heard during other interviews that the 1970s were extremely difficult times for everyone on various levels.
PE: It was a time when Burckhardt fell into a downright state of shock. If I remember correctly, we went from a staff of around 300, down to only 100 employees within a short amount of time. Back then, people still drew by hand, without a computer, and larger projects always involved around ten or so people. When the call came from a client that a project had been cancelled, we were forced to cut staff. That period of time has affected me to this day. I still believe that management has a huge responsibility towards its employees. When I took over the Service Buildings department, I found clear instructions in Edi Bürgin’s documents on the termination procedure, i.e., how to give notice when and to whom. They still had the categories of single or married and with or without children. It was enough to give you an instant guilty conscience if you were able to keep your job.
I was making the planning for the SRF radio and radio drama studios in the beginning of the 1970s, when it was still called DRS. At the groundbreaking ceremony, the company asked me if I could go to Aachen to the company Libra-Pharm. We were planning a pharmaceutical plant with laboratory buildings, production buildings, office buildings and an energy center. The two laboratory buildings were almost completed. I was actually only interested in the construction site management, and that for all of the ten construction sites. Due to certain circumstances, however, I was practically in charge of the entire project. My wife and I moved to Aachen for this from 1976 to 1978.
But when I think back to that time today, I realize in hindsight what the term burnout means. It was also an extremely strenuous time. I went through a hard schooling, but I did in fact learn to cope with pressure and take responsibility.
CI: How were things after you returned to Basel?
PE: I came back to Basel in 1978 and that was also the time when the whole issue of housing construction came up again. Burckhardt had built virtually no residential properties in recent years. We thought we were too good for it. And at some point, Guido Doppler commented that me being the audacious fellow that I was, if I kept doing housing construction, the company would be forced to start believing in housing construction.
Soon afterwards, at the beginning of the 1980s, Timmy Nissen and Edi Bürgin left Burckhardt. Simply put, Martin Burckhardt kept interfering in their work and as he got older, his criticism of the others’ architecture became louder.
We used to have a simple structure consisting of service buildings, industrial buildings, scientific buildings and then there were the special buildings. In any case, we had a simple, cleanly structured organization. You, Sämi, also took over the industrial buildings from Hans Riedi.
SCH: Yes, and then after Tom Koechlin’s departure they gave me the scientific buildings, too.
PE: After Edi Bürgin’s departure, the question was who would take over the service buildings department from him – that is, the residential and office buildings. As I had always done all the budgeting for Edi, I was asked to take over this department as well. I was just 34 years old at the time and that was when my career at Burckhardt really took off. But what was also quite decisive at this time: Burckhardt Architekten SIA became Burckhardt+Partner, because the partners no longer agreed with «Professor Burckhardt’s solo efforts». We also relocated the office from the Gellert neighborhood to Dornacherstrasse.
Back then, it was still the case that you couldn’t get contracts from the canton if you weren’t based in that specific canton. That’s why it made sense to have three office locations: in Muttenz in Baselland, Frick in Aargau, and the offices in Basel-Stadt.
You, Sämi, started out in Muttenz, but once I told you that if you wanted to get ahead, you should move to «headquarters».
SCH: That’s exactly what I did, I moved from Muttenz on Hofackerstrasse to the office in Basel on Peter Merian-Strasse. But back to you Peter, when did you become a partner?
PE: In 1987, I was appointed to the management team as a partner. It might be interesting to mention in this context that the importance of a CEO today did not even exist at that time and that you can’t compare today’s CEOs with a partner from back then. Nor with the role of a chairman of the board of directors at that time.
Speaking of the chairman of the board of directors, Guido Doppler also wanted to step down at some point and a successor had to be found for him. I can still remember it clearly, we were sitting under an apple tree and Guido proposed that Tom Koechlin become the new chairman of the board of directors. But Tom Koechlin was not an entrepreneur and didn’t know how to make use of his network to the same extent as Martin Burckhardt. But in fact, Tom could have bought the company with his financial background. That’s why I later fought for him to be let go. Also, this was to ensure that we would remain independent. He’s a lovely person and I really like him personally, but the role didn’t suit him. I am also convinced that he did better after he left, but at that moment it was a difficult decision and certainly a milestone in Burckhardt’s history.
CI: What do partnership and team spirit mean to you?
PE: At Burckhardt, partnership was partly defined in terms of participation in the company. I was proud to become a partner. I come from a modest background and to become a partner naturally also involved money. But then I also put money that I earned from the company back into the company. Purely due to faith in the company and also out of pride in being a part of it.
CI: What else are you proud of?
PE: I’m proud of Martin Burckhardt. Of the fact that he had the courage to start this company back then. And of the fact that he signed the shareholders’ agreement, creating the foundation for this company to be independent to this day and to be managed by those who worked there. We then made a new contract in 1993, at a time when the share value was falling, and turned these employee shares into 3,300 new unitary shares. That’s how we got people to invest in the company.
You have to be honest, simple, and modest towards people, and then you’ll find the right people who believe in you.
Peter Epting
SCH: It was one of your major achievements that you managed to convince people to buy shares during this difficult time.
PE: You have to have the courage to allow change. Whether on a construction site or in financial matters, it makes no difference. If you’re only ever cautious, then it becomes difficult. You have to be honest, simple, and modest towards people, and then you’ll find the right people who believe in you. You have to be authentic, answer people’s questions transparently, and then you can win them over.
CI: Are there any other examples of this?
PE: In the mid-1990s, the Suter + Suter office in Bern went under. Through FC Basel, where I was chairman, I got to know Heini Moser and Urs Luginbühl. They were the financial managers at Suter + Suter. They had gone public with the office, but overestimated their capabilities and ran into trouble. But they also had a project management manual, and we bought that from them first, before then starting the negotiations. This resulted in the takeover of the Suter + Suter office in Bern. We never actually paid anything for the takeover, but we were lucky enough to be able to offer Oliver Schmid a shareholding so that he could immediately join as a full partner. But as I always say, you can’t really «take over» an architectural office, you can only win over its people.
But we ourselves also won on various levels. Firstly, because at the time, we had far too many shares in the foundation, which was awkward from a tax point of view, and so we were able to solve this problem immediately with the shares we offered them. And secondly, the Bern office gave us another area of the healthcare sector that we hadn’t had before. In addition, the new employees were skilled users of the project management manual and had already worked with computers. We ourselves were not yet equipped with this type of technology at the time, nor did we have the expertise. So here, too, we reached a new level and bought computers and trained people to use them.
SCH: Can you tell us anything else about Grenzach?
PE: That was at the beginning of the 1990s, the plan was to gain a foothold in Germany and the EU, and another reason was Christoph Blocher’s EMS-Chemie, which was also based there. The idea was to start off big: Although there was already a small office in Grenzach, we also bought the Office for Industrial Construction. As a result, we set up a proper office in Grenzach with around 30 staff members and thought a major development would now be forthcoming. But it failed to materialize.
SCH: Martin Burckhardt also spent a lot of time in America. He drew up various master plans for Ciba-Geigy and built buildings in the chemical and banking sectors.
PE: Yes, although the USA was also a flop at the end of the 1980s. Back then, I was relieved that I didn’t speak English. But at least Martin made something of his relationships. He was able to convince people. I myself have always been good at convincing people and using my connections. Through my FC Basel presidency, I was able to make an incredible number of contacts, but that also called for a great deal of persuasion. And that’s how I got to know a lot of people who later helped me. I’m an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is also what I enjoy doing. Back then, I always personally scrutinized all the budgets from the entire Burckhardt company. Every quarter, I took out the big folder and studied it thoroughly. After reading through it each quarter, I already knew exactly which projects wouldn’t work.
During my time there, we began to combine acquisition with marketing.
Peter Epting
SCH: Now we’ve arrived at the subject of subsidiaries, one of which is of course Burckhardt Real estate. Can you tell us anything about that?
PE: Architects don’t like it at all when you «attach» a real estate company to an architectural office. However, an architect who enjoys making architecture can rarely implement his ideas in his own way, because he still has an investor looking at the costs – mostly institutional investors. That’s why Martin Burckhardt supported me in founding Burckhardt Real estate. During my time there, we began to combine acquisition with marketing. We carried on as if it were our first «practice run» in marketing. We put together brochures and were able to show that we built more inexpensively than the others and could prove that we had full occupancy. Armed with these brochures and Martin’s slide projector, we then went from client to client and tried to persuade them to build with us. That’s how we used to build residential housing back then.
SCH: There was also some profit left over, because all of this created security, boosted the share value, and so it was in the interest of the shareholders. I often tried to explain this to partners if they weren’t completely sure what was happening with the money that was being invested here in Basel.
PE: Guido Doppler once said something important to me. He said he had too many people around him who weren’t making full use of their skills. They always remained below their skill level but should really be acting beyond it. That has stayed with me because that was the reason I was always given the authority to make decisions. I was also bold at times and sometimes made decisions using my own discretion, but at the same time, you must deliver the goods, and Sämi, you were able to do that, as I did as well.
CI: What advice would you give to a young person who wants to enter the field of architecture?
PE: You don’t necessarily have to be an architect to create something beautiful. My personal opinion is that you can’t study architecture anyway. You either have the aesthetics and the feeling for it or you don’t. For me, it was always more of a good thing that I wasn’t an architect but was always allowed to feel like an entrepreneur.
SCH: Which buildings are characteristic of your time at Burckhardt?
PE: The maisonette apartments in the Freuler district in Muttenz on the border with Birsfelden. In Basel, the Bankverein; Parkweg in Allschwil; in the St. Alban-Vorstadt, the remodeling and new building at the Goldener Löwen; and of course, the Spengler in Münchenstein. I can imagine Paul Waldner will have had a lot to say about that, too. I was responsible for the glass building in the city center, and I remember that we had to fly to Monaco to see Mr. Spengler for negotiations. It was the same with Mr. Spengler as with Martin Burckhardt, you had to offer them a bit of resistance, and then things ended up better for both sides. Martin didn’t have many people in the company who dared to stand up to him.
CI: Can you finish the following sentence for us? «Martin Heinrich Burckhardt was …»
PE: «... a patriarch.» A «blue blooded» aristocrat, who stood his ground and practiced this in his everyday life. He grew up thinking that things would be carried out according to his decisions, and that the client must follow him, the architect. I experienced that a few times and it didn’t always work out that way. As long as everyone did what he wanted, everything was fine, which is why I would describe him as a patriarch. But Martin was also very caring. Having to let go so many employees during the crisis was quite painful for him. I believe that this, too, is what made him sick.
CI: Yes, his family told us about that. How would you describe the values of the Burckhardt company? What is its DNA?
PE: Its independence. When we left the office on Friday evening, we could be sure that we would still be working for the same company the following Monday. This can never be taken for granted, but I would also define it as Burckhardt’s recipe for success. This is because people often don’t fully grasp that the 60 or so shareholders today are also the financial backers. This creates security and independence. I think we can all agree that architecture has also improved compared to the past and we can be proud of that. But we also have to realize that we are not Herzog & de Meuron, we have to know our place. But we can also be proud of what we have achieved. One more thing I would like to add: We are a Basel office through and through, and we must never forget that.
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