Zurich Office

On November 1, 1979, Burckhardt opened the office at Neumarkt 28 in Zurich, where it is still located today. With this first location in Switzerland outside of Basel, the company not only opened up a new market within Switzerland, but also gained additional access to science and research. Significantly, the order volume was placed on a broader footing, because the company no longer relied exclusively on Basel-based chemical and pharmaceutical companies for commissions. 

The idea of broadening the company’s base had already arisen several years previously, when the oil price crisis had triggered a global recession that shook the global chemical industry and with it the chemical companies in Basel. The once substantial investments made by the chemical industry dwindled to next to nothing, including construction projects. As a Basel-based company whose activities were almost exclusively focused on the companies in the chemical industry locally, the shock hit Burckhardt particularly hard. The following figures show just how drastic a crash it was: Before the recession, the annual fee volume from commissions from the chemical industry accounted for over 50% of Burckhardt’s total turnover; afterwards it was just 5%. 

The lesson learned from these difficult years was never to become dependent on a single business sector again. In order to open up new areas of the market, new strategies were formulated and obstacles turned into opportunities. The focus of these deliberations centered on Zurich, Switzerland’s economic capital with a rapidly growing international financial sector. It only took Burckhardt a short time to acquire clients from the private sector in the city and win public sector projects. Guido Doppler, one of the partners from Basel, took over the Zurich office with a four-person staff. Within ten years, what started off as an office floor on Neumarkt had already become an entire office block with a team of 50 people. 

The proximity to ETH Zurich also opened up access to innovative ideas and technical progress. The office in Zurich very quickly became an important location for Burckhardt. Following in Guido Doppler’s steps, Thomas Keckeis, Roger Nussbaumer and, since 2009, Andreas Mast, have managed the office, completed landmark buildings in the Zurich area and throughout Switzerland, and brought numerous progressive ideas into the company. Examples of this include participation in major international competitions, the completion of the MFO Park and the access areas at Zurich Airport, as well as the Building System Laboratory, an experimental and test laboratory for ETH that opened in 2022, in which almost all climate zones worldwide can be simulated and newly developed façade elements tested.