Locations, Branch Offices and Subsidiaries

From the 1960s onwards, in addition to numerous projects for the chemical industry in Switzerland, Burckhardt was also able to complete an increasing number of commissions for J.R. Geigy AG, Ciba-Geigy AG and Sandoz AG abroad. With time, other well-known industrial companies such as Nestlé, Philips, and Migros were added to the client list.

Numerous buildings were completed in Italy, France, Spain, Austria, Belgium, the UK, and Sweden. After winning major commissions for Sandoz AG, especially in Paris and Vienna, that could only be handled effectively by local offices, Burckhardt seized the opportunity to become active in these two cities beyond the existing contracts, and established a presence there. Offices were also opened in Germany, in Lörrach and Düsseldorf, but without concrete commissions, so their growth was slower compared to the offices in Vienna and Paris. 

A variety of reasons had led to the bold step of establishing branch offices and subsidiaries abroad. The parent company in Basel had enjoyed considerable growth by Swiss standards, so it made sense to open up new fields of work that extended beyond Switzerland’s borders and to send employees abroad to take advantage of synergies. According to Martin H. Burckhardt himself, the aim was also to make Basel-based jobs as interesting as possible and to give people a chance to exchange ideas with those in other locations. At the same time, they wanted to create staffing resources to allow them to bring in personnel from the subsidiaries when the parent company was under pressure from major projects.