Founding of the Joint-Stock Company

At the beginning of the 1980s, the partners Martin H. Burckhardt, Guido Doppler, Timothy O. Nissen and Edi Bürgin took a groundbreaking decision to convert the company into a joint-stock company. For more than 40 years, from 1981 to 2023, the company operated under the name «Burckhardt+Partner AG».  

With the change in legal form, the management team were acting on lessons they had learned from the two oil price crises in 1973 and 1979. Despite the economic collapse, there were still significant investments being made in the construction sector, for example in infrastructure projects such as the «UZI – University of Zurich Irchel» building, which was completed in four stages. This, alongside its pursuit of sustainability and innovation, was the company’s main strategic thrust as it set out into the 1980s following its 30th anniversary. The partners came to the conclusion that an architecture and general planning company such as Burckhardt had to be able to act with foresight, and that it could only pursue long-term goals and establish new focus areas for the company if the management operated consistently across generations.

With the transformation into a joint-stock company, Burckhardt’s operations were now fully self-financed and independent of other companies and banks. The four partners Martin H. Burckhardt, Guido Doppler, Cuno Pümpin and Hans Riedi owned 85% of the required equity capital, a share capital of 3.3 million Swiss francs, following the departure of Timothy O. Nissen and Edi Bürgin from the company shortly after the new legal form took effect. The remaining 15% were in the hands of associates. «Burckhardt+Partner AG» now had offices in Basel (BS), Muttenz (BL) and Zurich. With around 130 staff, it has covered the four main typologies: «industrial construction”, «residential construction», «science and research», and «services» from design, to planning and construction technology, through to management.