Quai Zurich Campus is a place designed to bring people together. It shows
our values, our passion for modernity and sustainability, for collaboration
and friendship. You will find in this book stories about our past, present and future,
from the people who have shaped our thinking at Zurich to the values for which we stand.
Quai Zurich Campus reflects how we have evolved and who we are today. It
combines old and new architecture, with one overriding principle – encouraging
people to meet other people. It provides a place where we come together from all
over the world to develop ideas and gain inspiration. This is where the heart of
the company is. All of us together make Zurich a unique group, with strong values
based on a successful past and open to shape a sustainable future for everyone.
Quai Zurich Campus is one of the most sustainable buildings in the world; we want to
be here for the next generations. Even this book is fully carbon neutral. Welcome to
our home. Welcome to Quai Zurich Campus.
Florentina Gojani shares 17 square meters of living
space with her partner, Alesch Wenger, in a house
on an empty lot in Zurich-Altstetten. The couple
designed and built their tiny house themselves.
A Zurich customer, her company, Kollektiv Winzig,
advises people who also dream of living in tiny
homes.
What is sustainability? It’s a means
to an end. Sustainability provides us with more
maneuverability in terms of time. By reducing space and materials, we
gain time and can invest it in the things that
matter.
Where do you feel at home? Anywhere
there’s a fridge. Home is a fundamental emotion
rather than a place.
Alexander Zehnder spends his life looking into the
future to secure a good life for the generations to
come. In 1995,
together with other academics and experts in the ETH
domain of research institutes, he founded the 2000
Watt Society.
Focused on energy demand, it encourages people to be
innovative and use energy wisely to reduce global
warming.
Can individuals stop climate change?
It’s possible to live well and use energy
efficiently. Take public transportation,
consider how often you fly. Build better
houses.
Are you optimistic? We could be
climate-neutral by 2050.
It will need innovations, particularly in the
mobility sector. The faster we act, the more choices
we will have.
Danielle Brassel is part of a team of two that leads
responsible investment at Zurich,
guiding colleagues with the goal that Zurich’s
investments respect and benefit our planet and
society. Taking responsibility and leading by
example are qualities she and Zurich share.
What is the most rewarding part of your
job? Knowing we can make a real
difference. We’ve learned to measure impact –
tons of CO2 emissions we can avoid, or how many
people directly benefit from our investments.
Why is it important to invest
responsibly? We could be
climate-neutral by 2050.
We need to take a long term perspective and consider
the consequences of our actions to keep our planet
liveable.
Overseeing sustainability at Zurich in Switzerland
for Corporate Real Estate and Logistic Services,
Antonio Atorino looks for ways to lessen Zurich’s
environmental impact. Originally an IT specialist,
he took his current job only after being convinced
Zurich wanted to make a difference in this area.
What makes you effective? I’m
patient and use data. People are more apt to adopt
sustainable behavior when they see proof
of progress and understand why we change
something.
What areas are you focusing on? We
plan to increase how much waste
we separate, and the percentage we recycle. And,
we’re looking into participating in projects that
produce renewable energy.
Lukas Böni is a food scientist and co-founder of
Planted, a Zurich customer based in Kemptthal in the
canton of
Zurich. His start-up was founded at the ETH
university. It manufactures what it calls ‘planted
chicken’ from peas and
rapeseed oil – a meat substitute for which not a
single chicken has to die. Its products contain no
chemical additives.
What is your vision? We want to
manufacture a product that is better than meat. One
that goes easy on resources
and saves animals, is healthy, and tastes even
better – and one everyone can afford.
Should we still be eating meat?
What matters is the quantity, and that we understand
that eating meat means killing animals. I don’t eat
meat.
Judith Haeberli wants to change the way we commute
and make traveling to work more sustainable.
Via an app, her start-up Urban Connect offers
companies access to a fleet of e-bikes, e-scooters
and e-cars.
Zurich employees also use Haeberli’s bikes – thus
helping to reduce CO2-emissions.
What do you care about? The cities
of the future. If we change the way we go to work,
our cities will also change.
Completely new ways of meeting, landscaping and
movement will emerge.
Traffic and the environment – can they be
compatible? Electric vehicles are an
essential part of the fight to mitigate climate
change.
Go with the flow
In a basement, unseen, around the clock,
is a low-energy, highly efficient miracle that keeps
people in Quai Zurich Campus cool or warm and does it
sustainably with lake water.
Building the original pipe for lake water.Photo: Zurich Archives
Quai
Zurich Campus’s heartbeat is a loud one, but
don’t worry. Unless you venture into a chamber
below street level, you’ll probably never hear its
engines whining at about 100 decibels (disco strength).
The twin heat pumps located here are an active
reminder of Zurich’s sustainability goals. The engines
drive two pumps that circulate lake water through
about 100 kilometers of pipes installed in the ceilings of
the Campus buildings, at a rate of up to 500,000 liters
per hour. The system works by circulating warm or
cool water through pipes hidden in the ceiling panels
throughout the Quai Zurich Campus.
The ceiling panels also reflect light – another energy saving
characteristic – and dampen noise. There is no
draft, and no worry that stale air will be recirculated.
Fresh air is drawn in at a rate of about 300,000 cubic
meters per hour, in a way designed not to create drafts.
The system is thus helping Zurich to achieve the highest
platinum Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
(LEED) certification. And it is in line with Zurich’s status
as the first insurer to sign the ‘Business Ambition for 1.5°C
Pledge,’ which requires companies to set science-based
targets aligned with limiting global temperature rise to
1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial
levels.
The heat pump system works on the principle of heat
transfer. As transferring heat is more efficient than burning
fossil fuels, it requires less carbon-producing energy and
creates fewer emissions.
Neither fish nor swimmers are at threat
Switzerland, with virtually no fossil fuel resources, was
a pioneer in heating pump technology. Installation in
1938 of such a pump in Zurich City Hall fed by the River
Limmat created a sensation at the time it was introduced.
By 1945, there were around 35 heat pumps in operation
in the country.
Zurich the company introduced its first heat pump
in 1947, which was deactivated in the years before Quai
Zurich Campus underwent refurbishment. In Zurich’s
case, the new heat pumps installed during the building
site rebuild completed in 2021 draw water directly from
Lake Zurich, fed by a pipe hidden 11 meters below the
lake’s surface. The pipe is designed to prevent other
miscellaneous, random objects and fish or swimmers from
being inadvertently sucked in. The lake temperature
varies from about 5 degrees Celsius (41 Fahrenheit) in
early spring to about 16 Celsius (61 Fahrenheit) in early
autumn, making the lake water ideal for heating and
cooling purposes.
HFO-1234ze is under pressure
The newly installed system will help reduce Zurich’s
energy consumption to a fraction of what it used to be,
according to Christian Polke and Alexander Küng at the
company Polke, Ziege, von Moos AG. Their company
was responsible for the sophisticated concept, design
and technical engineering at Quai Zurich Campus.
To understand how heat transfer in a heat pump
works, consider how refrigerators function. For cooling,
the coolant is expanded. Putting pressure on the coolant
creates warmth. Zurich’s system will use a refrigerant
referred to as ‛HFO-1234ze,’ considered to be an environmentally
friendly organic compound, which unlike earlier
types of refrigerant, doesn’t deplete the ozone layer and
has a minimum impact on global warming.
Installing a state-of-the-art heating and cooling system
in our headquarters underscores our commitment to being
as sustainable as possible. It’s something we are proud
to make public, even if we prefer to keep our heat pumps
out of sight in a relatively soundproof place.
Inside the real heart of Quai Zurich Campus.Photo: Stephan Birrer
A magnetic filter, or modern art?Photo: Stephan Birrer
Delivering a vacuum device for the old pump in 1947.Photo: Zurich Archives
Cooling distribution that is really cool.Photo: Stephan Birrer
Delivering hope
Z Zurich Foundation is an independent
charitable foundation that Zurich
founded to mark its centenary. Gary Shaughnessy has been its
Chair since 2017.
Food for the homeless: ZZF Chair Gary Shaughnessy and Antonio Bico, CEO Zurich Portugal.Photo: ZZF
The
Z Zurich Foundation has always been about
Zurich’s people making a difference in the communities
in which we live and work, but that ambition has
grown into creating a fairer, more sustainable society
both locally and globally. This means tackling the issues
that really matter to us and society – the dramatic
impact of climate change, the challenges in a modern
world to maintain mental wellbeing, and the often stark
need for social equity. The Z Zurich Foundation uses
Zurich’s abilities and actions to prevent and preempt
catastrophes, while helping people to realize their full
potential, no matter where they started or where they
are now. It is core to Zurich’s culture and reflects the
commitment and passion of Zurich’s people who make
the Foundation’s work real and relevant. While the
Foundation is both independent and has no profit motive,
the role that it can play in creating a more sustainable
and fairer society is a crucial part of both the Zurich culture
and in reinforcing what the Zurich brand stands for.
Z Zurich Foundation Chair Gary Shaughnessy, from
Reading, is also Chair of Parkinson’s UK.
Insurers focus on risk. How does the Z Zurich
Foundation approach risk?
Gary Shaughnessy: We aim to make people more
independent. The Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance,
funded by the Foundation, for example, combines
Zurich’s insurance expertise with knowledge of other
specialists to help communities in Bangladesh,
Indonesia and Mexico, and Nepal better face floods.
What’s been achieved so far?
The flood program has given about 300,000 people more
certainty and control over their lives. We’re now extending
into more parts of the world and helping communities to
prepare for other hazards like wildfires.
What does the Foundation do to improve people’s everyday
lives?
‘Tackle your Feelings’ is one example. Started in Ireland,
the campaign, run by Rugby Players Ireland and Zurich with
the Foundation’s support, uses rugby players as role models to
talk about mental health issues to youngsters. This has had a
dramatic, positive effect. We’re looking to support the program
in 16 more countries by the end of 2024.
How do Zurich’s employees get involved?
Since 2013 Zurich employees have volunteered nearly one
million hours within their communities, including mentoring
young people, renovating schools and houses, and
fundraising.
With so much already achieved, what’s next?
We will continue to support the most vulnerable to adapt
to climate change, look after their mental wellbeing and
realize their potential in a rapidly changing world. And we
will further strengthen our collaborations, engage more with
governments, and support all Zurich employees to actively
contribute to their communities.
What’s your favorite aspect of the ZZF?
Energy! That includes people both inside and outside Zurich
and the Foundation, and especially those we support. I am
always struck by how positive people can be, how they find
the energy to deal with setbacks. And, I love learning from
the brilliant diversity of people across the planet.
What challenges do you see for ZZF’s next 50 years?
Could we have imagined, 50 years ago, the challenges we face
now? While we can’t see into the future, creating a sustainable,
learning society with opportunity and empathy seems
fundamental. So does harnessing the incredible potential of
progress for all. Protecting the fragile planet, valuing and
embracing our differences, and supporting those in need will
remain priorities.
Flood resilience team in Mexico visits the pristine upstream area of a river in Chiapas.Photo: ZZF
Recycle, re-use, repurpose
Just some of the ways Quai Zurich Campus
reduces its environmental impact.
Little things add up to make a big difference.
From
reducing energy to re-using food,
there are a lot of ways to minimize the impact on the
environment and even,
in some cases, benefit the planet through reducing resources and
making the most of what is available. Quai Zurich
Campus sets high standards in being a user-friendly place to
work, while reducing its environmental impact. Ways it does
this include everything from depending on renewable energy to
reducing chemicals used to clean. Sit back, relax and enjoy
a high degree of efficiency coupled with interesting ways to
make a difference. Climate-conscious facilities management
system can co-exist with comfort. And keep in mind; this is only
a partial list!
Deals on meals
In wealthy countries astounding volumes of food
are wasted every year – an estimated 2.6 million
tons wind up in Swiss bins each year. We can
do better. With our ‘Click and Collect’ service,
Quai Zurich Campus employees may pre-order
meals of leftovers. They enjoy good food at home,
at great prices. Food remnants of lesser quality
are disposed of as kitchen waste. They go to a
company that uses them to produce biogas energy.
Mooove!
Being more active is good for us. With coaches
from TuricumFit, Quai Zurich Campus offers free
fitness classes to get employees moving, and
encourages dynamic sitting and standing at desks.
It’s not only people who need exercise. An organic
dairy farm in Uster near Zurich that supplies milk to
Quai Zurich Campus believes in keeping its cows
moving, too, encouraging grazing to promote
bovine health over maximum milk yield.
Anti-bin brigade
To discourage refuse, there are no garbage bins
under the desks at Quai Zurich Campus. As a
lot of waste is generated by plastic containers,
on-site the café services will provide only
re-usable containers and biodegradable cups
for takeaways. As a matter of course, stringent
recycling will be enforced. Waste paper is
collected in containers and disposed of by a
company that recycles paper after it’s shredded.
Water everywhere
Rainwater storage tanks on the roof capture
precipitation used for sanitary systems, while
motion-sensor faucets in restrooms eliminate
water waste. Zurich’s energy-efficient heating
pumps in the basement rely on the water of
nearby Lake Zurich that is circulated pipes to
keep the property pleasantly warm or cool
without costing a fortune, or harming the planet.
Drinking water selections? Try tap water.
Powerful savings
Roof-top photovoltaic cells add to energy from
100-percent renewable sources. Energy-efficient
lighting and appliances and motion-detection
sensors cut power use and sensors curb artificial
light in daytime. Most desks are near natural
light sources. Master switches stop energy drain.
Energy dashboards remind people to use power
mindfully. And in the gym, the fitness equipment
produces its own energy.
Just chill
When summer comes, Zurich can be a hot
place. But Quai Zurich Campus has ways to keep
cool while forgoing the negative environmental
impact of air conditioning. Besides cool water
circulating through pipes to lower room
temperatures, plants on the roof reduce the heat
island effect. Special windowpanes filter out
excess sunlight to reduce the temperatures
inside. So, no matter how hot it is, you can chill.
Where’s the parking?
Everyone can be a climate hero. But how
do you encourage people to adopt
sustainable behavior? Sometimes with an approach using both
carrot and stick.
The garage offers just 43 parking spaces.Photo: Stephan Birrer
According
to what is called Marchetti’s constant,
whether people walk, drive, cycle or take public
transportation to work, the average commute for most
is about 30 minutes each way. The Swiss conform to the
rule almost precisely, with an average one-way commute
of exactly 30.6 minutes, according to the Swiss Federal
Statistics Office.
What is not captured in the statistics is whether the
commute is enjoyable or not, perhaps depending on
how the average commuter feels about cars honking and
many people sitting in crowded trains screaming into
mobile phones. And, more important, whether people
consider the impact of their commute on CO2 emissions.
Taking public transport, cycling or walking, or even
car-pooling and ride-sharing can reduce emissions.
More climate friendly
Zurich is working hard to make travel to and from Quai
Zurich Campus practical, convenient, and sustainable.
“The goal of companies today must be climate- neutrality,”
says Stefan Schneider, a partner at Planungsbüro Jud AG,
which served as Zurich’s consultant in planning the mobility
concept for Quai Zurich Campus. Zurich’s operations have
been ‘carbon neutral’ on a global basis since 2014, a
calculation that has recently starting to include emissions
produced by employee’s commutes. Quai Zurich Campus
aims to encourage sustainable commuting.
Encouraging good habits
Those visiting the garage will see that to reinforce its
message of climate neutrality, it offers just 43 parking
spaces, most of them for visitors and renters. The garage
will offer charging stations for electric cars, and the
executive fleet will be all-electric. It also provides disabled
options. Employees who still want to drive will be
encouraged to use park and rail solutions.
According to a survey taken before the Quai Zurich
Campus opened, only about 10 percent of Zurich’s
employees planned to drive to work, while fully 70 percent
expected to use public transportation. Around 10 percent
of headquarters’ employees planned to cycle, walk or even
jog to work.
For the fitness-minded, Quai Zurich Campus offers
a bicycle station, lockers and showers. Employees may
choose to work from home some of the time, which
reduces emissions tied to commuting. Zurich already
introduced a flexible approach to work in 2016. That
made it easier to keep employees safe while operations
shifted to home office during the 2020-21 pandemic. As
things get back to normal, Zurich’s hybrid working model
still allows employees to work remotely, side-by-side
with those in the office on any given day. One thing
difficult to replicate virtually is the humble commute. For
some, it is an enjoyable ritual that adds structure to the
day and allows them to transition from one environment
to the other. A commute, or at least a transition, can be
good for our wellbeing.
Dodging bicycles
Some experts even recommend that people working
from home build a ‘fake’ commute into their routine.
The exhilaration of running for trains, observing strangers,
dodging cyclists, hearing birds singing (or strangers
yelling into their phones) can all offer us a moment or
two to mentally de-stress and prepare for wherever we
are headed next.
One of the charging stations for electric cars.Photo: Stephan Birrer
All in the family
Meet the hard workers keeping
Quai Zurich Campus sustainable, 24/7.
Carbon-eating machines at work in Quai Campus Zurich.Photo: Stephan Birrer
Local
regulations require that at least one-third of
Quai Zurich Campus’s open spaces must be planted.
It’s a climate-friendly solution. Plants trap CO2 in the
air. They help to keep things cool in summer and conserve
warmth in winter. Historical preservation also demands
that the landscaping done around Zurich’s oldest building
match its heritage-site status.
Traditional plantings include Amur maple trees with
leaves that flame bright red in the fall and Japanese maple,
a delicate haiku of a tree, as well as Full Moon maple with
rounded leaves. Hydrangeas, popular for over a century,
add a note of color, as does a perennial with tall pink flowers
and an unlikely name – Hungarian bear’s breeches. Another
plant with delicate flowers is called, improbably, goat’s
beard. And then there’s a plant with small blossoms called
fingerleaf Rodger’s plant.
During the fall, stop by Alfred Escher Street and sniff.
You might think you smell gingerbread. Actually, it is a
substance released by the leaves of the katsura called
maltol that gives this plant its other name – caramel tree.
The inner courtyards provide more green, but here
the challenge was to find suitable shade-lovers. One such
is spiky mondo grass, distantly related to asparagus. Besides
water lettuce in the fountain, there’s also Virginia creeper
and honeysuckle clinging to a trellis, a summer banquet
for bees and hummingbirds. Inside the buildings, over 500
planters contain rock gardens with stones from Andeer, and
the Maggia valley, and cacti from Mexico, South America,
and South Africa. You can also pay a visit to the cacti
arboretum down the street.
Did you know that cacti can horde CO2, so much so
that some people call them carbon-eating machines?
So, you can see that even plants from different families
are on the same team in terms of sustainability.
Our lives and those of others are
inextricably linked. We act as individuals,
but there is power in joining forces.
Although Corine Mauch was born in the U.S. Midwest – in Iowa City, to be precise – she chose to pursue her
political career in Zurich and became the city’s first female mayor. As ‘prima inter pares’, the Social Democrat is
at the heart of decision-making on economic, political and social affairs within the municipal government.
What is community? Closeness, dialog, mutual understanding, strong relationships – fundamental human needs. Only together
can we tackle major challenges like climate change or a pandemic.
How important is Zurich for the city of Zurich? Both are
closely interconnected. Quai Zurich Campus will make quite an impact on the lakeshore, which is a very popular spot in our city.
His official job title is Head of the Jazz, Rock, Pop Department of the City of Zurich – but Niklaus
Riegg’s real role is serving as an ambassador of good music. He initiated the #zürilove Spotify playlist
to ensure the world can get regular updates on new songs by Zurich singers and bands.
What is the Zurich sound?
Very varied. Zurich isn’t characterized or dominated by any specific musical style.
As populations change, people bring their own sounds. What makes Zurich’s sound interesting is its fragmentary nature.
Can music bring people together? Certainly! Music is inclusive and provides a sense of identity.
As managing partner of a Zurich agency, François Rapeaud helps customers. As the president of the board
of the Foundation Ombuds Office for Children’s Rights in Switzerland, he helps kids in need. His first job was
working with traumatized youngsters. His grandfather and his father were also active in charitable work.
What makes you happy? Through Zurich, the Ombuds Office has gained support in its efforts to defend children‘s and
young adults’ legal rights and advocate for a more child-friendly Swiss justice system.
What do you tell people who have no
time to volunteer? Human rights affect everyone everywhere. They are not a privilege. Each of us can make a difference.
A special neighbor lives just minutes from Quai Zurich Campus: the Voliere Zürich, established in 1898,
is one of Switzerland’s biggest wild and exotic bird rescue stations. Each year, Elisabeth Schlumpf
and her team care for about 2,000 sick and injured birds, as well as birds that haven fallen from nests.
Nature and city dwellers – can these coexist? Yes, if we give wild creatures some habitat – for example,
by planting indigenous flowers that help native insect populations, which in turn provide food for wild birds.
What can humans learn from birds? Complete honesty. If a bird is in a bad mood, it tells you that quite openly.
At the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), Aleksandra Gnach heads the IAM MediaLab,
an interactive platform that connects academics from different disciplines and professionals. Together
they develop public communications solutions for a world transformed by digital technology.
What makes linguistics fascinating? We shape our world with language. What we say and how we say it forms our perception of
reality and our behavior – what we buy, how we vote, whom we trust.
How can companies like Zurich communicate well?
To be
truly effective, we need to understand whom we are communicating with and which formats help us connect with our audiences.
Suba Umathevan fled Sri Lanka and arrived in Switzerland when she was just two. She has made it her
life’s work to fight for children’s rights – particularly girls’ rights. Z Zurich Foundation supports her projects
in Nepal and Nicaragua that make it possible for children to advise their villages on flood protection.
What are you passionate about? Equality, social justice and – of course – girls’ rights. Empowering girls is
especially important, as they face particular disadvantages. Investing in their education can bring about lasting change.
What does community mean to you? Being there for one another, and being mutually supportive.
A rock, a fountain or a table?
What led Zurich to place a 24-ton block of sandstone in a courtyard? The desire
to have it overrode any hesitation about whether it was even possible to get it there.
The world’s largest sandstone single-block fountain.Photo: Florian Kalotay
It is probably the largest block – table, fountain,
or planter, for it can be all of those – ever created
out of a single piece of sandstone. Just cutting it in
the quarry not too far away at the other end of Lake
Zurich was a challenge. The work was designed by Vogt
Landschaftsarchitekten AG, for which the fountain
is a natural extension of the building, cut of the same
sandstone used on the exterior and courtyard paving.
Realizing how tricky the job would be, the quarry that
delivered it, Müller Natursteinwerk near Eschenbach,
Switzerland, began work already in 2018, even before
the contract was finalized. To keep it level so that the
enormous stone wouldn’t break under its own weight,
as it was cut it was set on supports in the middle of
the quarry. There it remained amid all the other work
going on around it, as ornamentation with a hand-held
stonecutting machine was completed and it could be
moved.
As far as the designers are concerned, the stone might
be perceived as a fountain or a planter, but it can also serve
as a table. The pattern cut into the stone mimics the
one on the courtyard tiles. If you use your imagination,
perhaps you can also imagine a sort of lace tablecloth
draped over it, carved into the rock, such as one in a still
life. Inspiration for the design came from a tablecloth
that still impresses viewers today, part of Dutch painter
Floris van Dijck’s masterpiece, Still Life with Cheese,
circa 1615. But unlike those still-life tables, ours is also
filled with water. The idea of a ‘water table’ is not new.
A very long table with something like a stream running
through it can still be found in the sixteenth century
Villa Lante gardens in Viterbo, Italy. Part of an allegorical
water system that included cascades, fountains and dripping
grottos, that table in Italy might have offered a practical way
to chill food, or, perhaps even a fanciful means of floating
dishes downstream to guests.
A cool respite, a decorative centerpiece.Photo: Stephan Birrer
Stones excite emotions and even fly
Those invited to dine at Villa Lante must have been
delighted. Less delighted were the employers of the man
who commissioned it. He later made contributions to
the local hospital and church to atone for any unseemly
excess. By contrast, most people are delighted by Zurich’s
fountain. After all, the Villa Viterbo’s ornamental stonework
can’t boast of flying, as Quai Zurich Campus’s fountain
can; to keep it from breaking under its own weight, Zurich’s
great stone was only freed from supports in the middle of
the quarry when it came time to move it. Getting the stone
in one piece to its fi nal position in an inner courtyard
required equal parts determination and bravery. It arrived
at night to avoid traffic. It came on a truck, all 24 tons of
it, an occasion presided over by teams of logistics experts,
and eagerly anticipated by local media. Then, suspended
by a steel I-beam from a crane, it was hoisted over a sevenstory
building. Lowering it into the inner courtyard required
extreme precision, carried out millimeter by millimeter
with the help of lasers to position it exactly to line up with
plumbing pipes. Now in its final home, 12 meters long
and one meter wide, with a deep channel in the center, it
also resembles on some level a village fountain, or watering
trough. But one filled with plants.
Water lettuce creates a cool micro-climate
The plantings are an ingenious solution to meet the required
areas of greenery in the three courtyards (232 square meters).
Bearing in mind that the inner courtyard where the fountain
is placed receives very little direct sunlight, it is planted
with shade-loving Pistia stratiotes, or water lettuce, which
should also help to create a cool micro-climate. So along
with its many other attributes, the fountain, table and/or
aquatic planter will be a good conversation piece. On hot
summer days, make sure to get a table near it and admire
the unique workmanship. But please don’t eat the water
lettuce.
The fountain is 12 meters long and one meter wide.Photo: Vogt Landschaftsarchitekten AG
It is planted with floating water lettuce.Photo: Vogt Landschaftsarchitekten AG
The pattern on the edge recalls a tablecloth.Photo: Vogt Landschaftsarchitekten AG
Covered, the fountain becomes a table.Photo: Vogt Landschaftsarchitekten AG
Infinity underfoot
The tiles in the inner courtyards form patterns of
infinite variation, truly a mathematical marvel.
The Penrose pattern in the courtyard.Photo: Stephan Birrer
The Penrose pattern that served as the basis for
design of the Quai Zurich Campus courtyard tiles
takes its name from British mathematician and Nobel
Prize winner Roger Penrose, who in the 1970s, as an
exercise, developed patterns that produce infinite variation.
As you continue to study the design, notice that the
tiles consist of only two geometric shapes: a thick diamond
and a thin one. The visual aspects of such patterns
and how the eye perceives them is a concept that has
preoccupied generations who are fascinated by the
mathematical principles expressed in the Alhambra Palace’s
mosaics, for example, or the puzzle-like drawings of
interlocking shapes by Dutch artist M.C. Escher.
Selecting the Penrose pattern for Zurich’s courtyard
was a way of acknowledging the science of mathematics,
which is also at the heart of insurance. If you look closely,
your eyes will start to pick out literally hundreds of
five-pointed stars. Look again. You will also see circles.
One way to understand how Penrose plays with your
mind is to compare the tiles at Quai Zurich Campus to
a conventional design of square tiles. Walking across
squares, they would all look exactly the same. Wherever
you stood, you would only see squares. With Penrose
designs, something wonderful and unpredictable happens.
That is, infinite variation. From the higher floors of Quai
Zurich Campus, the patterns become even clearer, helping
to unify the style elements of the Campus buildings.
Now that you know the secret of the tiles, you might
contemplate how abstract mathematical principles
shape our lives. Ask yourself where the balance lies.
The decisions we take, the choices we make each day
affect everyone else’s lives, too. Like the pattern of the
tiles in our courtyards, interlocking and reforming. They
remind us that when all is said and done, as individuals
we are inextricably interconnected, each and every one
of us making up part of a greater whole.
The color of Zurich
The sandstone used for Zurich’s
oldest buildings is a local phenomenon.
The sandstone used in Quai Zurich Campus’s oldest
and newest buildings, called Bollinger, was already
in demand back in the Middle Ages. Many of Zurich
city’s most recognizable landmarks are at least partly of
Bollinger sandstone, including the Grossmünster and
Fraumünster churches, the historic Zurich City Hall, and
the eighteenth-century Guildhall zur Meisen. Bollinger
sandstone, named after the area where it is quarried not
far from Zurich, just down the lake, consists of quartz,
mica and feldspar bound by calcite. Feldspar is light pink,
which can give it a brownish tinge. If you had been around
over 20 million years ago, you might have met a young
rhinoceros; parts of it can be seen today in the Natural
History Museum of St. Gallen. Its rare fossilized skull
was all that remained, discovered in the quarry supplying
Zurich’s sandstone. Treated well, sandstone buildings,
unlike baby rhinos, can last through the ages.
Damage done through restoration
But sandstone is vulnerable to the elements. Acid in air
pollution dissolves the calcite binding the fine grains.
Road salt condenses on the stone, causing it to flake.
Joints expand and contract, letting in moisture and
weakening it. Humans also do damage in the name of
protecting the stone. A waterproofing chemical applied
years ago actually caused the sandstone used on the roof
of Zurich’s oldest building to decay and crumble. Eric
Voigt, a restoration specialist at Bianco und Kiesalter AG,
and his team worked for over two years to restore and
preserve Quai Zurich Campus’s stone. Besides sandstone,
buildings on the site contain many other types of stone:
shell limestone, and a dark limestone called St. Triphon
from Western Switzerland. Renovators ran into a
problem when they discovered that the quarry that had
supplied the original St. Triphon stone had closed.
Replacement stones were found in Spain. There is also
a hard metamorphic granite called gneiss from Ticino
used around the bottom of the oldest building and balconies.
Over a century ago this stone was probably shipped
via the Gotthard Tunnel to Enge station, a route still new
when work began on Zurich’s first building. Perhaps
the worst thing one can do to beautiful stone is to apply
a sticky silicon paste to discourage pigeons. Voigt’s team
had to remove a lot of pigeon paste by hand. Another
thing that surely nobody would do today? Cut chunks
out of the polished Sardinian breccia marble decorating
the foyer of the former Vita building. During restoration,
holes gouged out were plastered over and painted by
hand to look like marble. If someone were to carelessly
clean it, the painstaking handiwork would be wiped
away. Zurich’s buildings will probably withstand the test
of time, unless, of course, someone tries to waterproof
the stone again, apply pigeon paste, or clean the marble
with harsh chemicals.
A worldly village
Enge’s lake shore is called the Pfnüselküste – ‘sniffles coast.’ Getting less sun, its residents
are supposedly more prone to colds. But Enge is in many ways quintessentially Zurich.
Sniffles coast? Really? Enge’s lake shore – with Quai Zurich Campus – belies its nickname.Photo: Stephan Birrer
Enge might be considered Zurich’s neighborhood
with a chip on its shoulder. Looked down on by
some as the Sniffles Coast because it gets a little less
sun than the communities on the opposite shore of the
lake, it seems to need to prove something. There’s the
impressive Muraltengut mansion built by a local building
commissioner who, it is said, wanted to disprove critics
who insisted he knew nothing about building. Or the Enge
villa, long gone, that served as a clubhouse for Swiss men
who wore cloaks and carried daggers and kept gondolas
in a stylized moat, preferring to think of themselves as
Venetians. Enge lacks royalty, but has its own castle,
Schloss Sihlberg, built in 1898. The Rietberg Museum, set
in an extensive park, houses an outstanding collection
of Asian art, and includes a green glass cube (the Emerald),
designed by Swiss architect Alfred Grazioli and Quai
Zurich Campus’ architect Adolf Krischanitz.
We do it better, we did it first!
One of Switzerland’s most beloved writers, Gottfried
Keller, was for a time a resident of Enge. So, too, was
industrialist and politician Alfred Escher, a classic over-
Sniffles coast? Really? Enge’s lake shore – with
Quai Zurich Campus – belies its nickname.
achiever: he served multiple times as head of the Swiss
national assembly, founded a railroad, promoted setting
up Zurich’s technical ETH university, was instrumental
in establishing a bank, a life insurer and a reinsurer, and
his vision contributed to founding Zurich, the company.
He died before he could take the train journey through
his arguably biggest project, the Gotthard Tunnel. Enge
can claim another important we-do-it-better, or at least,
we-did-it-first milestone: Zurich’s first squatters. When
these occupied buildings set for demolition in the early
1970s, Zurich employees got used to passing banners with
slogans like Renters’ Struggle – Class Struggle and die
Enge wird enger! When singing Enge’s praises, one other
thing should not be overlooked. Perhaps because it gets
a few minutes less sun than trendy Seefeld on the opposite
shore, Enge residents also feel they have more to prove.
Enge’s birthrate is in creasing, while over on the sunny
lake shores the population has declined. Perhaps Enge’s
residents are inspired by a few extra minutes of romantic
twilight. Or else – it would be in character – they want
to prove that on their side of the lake, the Sniffles Coast,
they do everything a little better.
A matter of life and death
Zurich is made up of people. Some have poignant stories, including one that can be pieced
together from two letters that describe fear, despair, and ultimately express heartfelt thanks.
Richard Jung (left) during the difficult war years.Photo: Zurich Archives
The story begins with a letter dated August 25,
1946 from Richard Jung, who had recently been
appointed Zurich’s managing director in Germany.
It is addressed to Hans Farner, responsible for Zurich’s
German business at its headquarters in Switzerland. The
letter describes in detail the hardships of establishing
business in post-war Germany: “Someone has stolen
both our best typewriters... .” Then, before closing, Jung
writes in a few heart-felt lines: “You have done more
for me than I could have hoped... .” It’s hard to associate
Jung, whose photo shows a practical, serious-looking
man, with any such emotions, but what the letter refers
to was nothing other than a matter of life and death, and
a narrow escape. Had Farner not intervened, Jung's
beloved wife, and his two children may have perished,
and Jung himself might not have survived.
When the Nazis came to power in Germany in the
1930s, they introduced atrocious laws persecuting Jews.
Nazis also put German businesses under tight Party
surveillance. Zurich’s Berlin office got its own ‘ombudsman,’
a man called Bernhard Schmidt; what he was, in fact, was
a Nazi spy. Schmidt was a fanatic and he set about his
work with repugnant passion. In 1934 he denounced a
Zurich employee for making fun of a patriotic Nazi song.
The man was packed off to prison. In 1941, Schmidt
exposed one of Zurich’s German employees as being of
Jewish descent. The man died of heart failure while under
arrest. In 1944, Schmidt struck again, exposing a woman
in Zurich’s office as being half-Jewish. She was seized
and eventually murdered in a concentration camp.
But Schmidt had an even bigger target in mind: no
less than Richard Jung himself, then-deputy manager
of Zurich in Germany. Schmidt seized on the fact that
Jung’s wife, Kläre, a converted Catholic, was born a Jew.
Alarmed by the developments in Germany, back in Zurich,
Hans Farner sent an urgent appeal to Zurich Chairman
August Leonhard Tobler. Tobler signed a directive to
provide help. In 1939, with Zurich’s assistance and support,
Kläre and her two children moved to Switzerland where
she was looked after by none other than Hans Farner and
his wife Agnes.
Meanwhile, back in Berlin, Schmidt continued his
despicable work, going so far as to enlist a Nazi sympathizer
working for the Swiss gas company to spy on Kläre to
see if he could learn if she was keeping in touch with her
husband, who, for appearance’s sake, had become her
ex-husband. Though he tried, Schmidt failed to uncover
anything to incriminate Jung.
After the war ended, the Jungs were reunited. But
there is one final letter to mention. This one is addressed
to Germany’s post-war police. It details Schmidt’s odious
actions, signed by witnesses including Richard Jung. At
last, Jung could turn tables and have Bernhard Schmidt,
the denouncer, denounced.
Board minutes, 1938: Zurich to “pay for family’s accommodation.”Photo: Zurich Archives
“More for me than I could have hoped.” A telling letter, 1946.Photo: Zurich Archives
Photo: Zurich Archives
We are all travelers. It is the journey
that matters, and the direction,
as much as the ultimate destination.
When she skates in a roller derby, Tatjana Buser becomes Harley Hot Roll. This female-dominated, full-contact
sport, sometimes described as ‘feminism on the flat track,’ requires speed, tactical skill and perseverance –
characteristics she also needs in her daily job as a strategic assistant in Zurich’s Group communications team.
Can sports change lives? Absolutely! Roller derby has given me a great deal of self-confidence, and still does.
It’s a lifestyle. Without this sport, I wouldn’t be the person I am today.
What’s your approach to life? Teamwork – regardless of whether I’m at work or skating: together we fight, together we lose, together we win.
Günther Vogt made Quai Zurich Campus’ into a green and sustainable oasis. His team not only did the landscaping
but also designed the massive sandstone fountain in the central courtyard. As a professor of landscape design,
he finds inspiration in unusual places. That includes the abandoned site of the former Chernobyl nuclear reactor.
What allows Quai Zurich Campus to harmonize with its surroundings?
Through the use of materials such as sandstone, granite
and gneiss, as well as certain patterns such as the one on the fountain. It changes depending on how the water flows over it.
Are there
places nature reclaimed control? At Chernobyl, for example, where since the catastrophe, humans have completely been excluded.
Attorney Vreni Spoerry was elected in 1983 as member of the Liberal Democrats to the Swiss National Council.
In 1986 she became the first woman to serve on Zurich’s board – and was still the only one when she stepped down in
1996. Her motto was, and remains: “We aren’t doing politics to serve women. As women, we are serving in politics.”
What was it like being one of the only woman in meetings? I didn’t spend so much time thinking about it. That was simply the
reality. I wanted to play an active role and do what I thought was right.
How has the job of serving on a board changed? Companies
have become more international, and problems increasingly complex. The responsibility might be greater now than it was in the past.
Mario Greco returned to Zurich as Group CEO in 2016 and since
then has worked to ensure that Zurich is a business with a purpose –
one that works for society as a whole to create a sustainable future.
What is Quai Zurich Campus for you? A place where people can achieve more together. A place for inspiration which feels
like home.
What connects Zurich the company with Zurich the city? We could not be Zurich without Zurich. We’re proud of
what we contribute to this great city. We share values, a belief in continuous evolution and an optimistic vision of the future.
Serving the world from Ebikon in the canton of Lucerne: elevators and escalators made by Schindler, a company
established in 1874, are found everywhere on the planet – including Quai Zurich Campus. Patrick Hess has been
fascinated by Schindler since he was young, even writing a paper about it in high school. He joined the group in 2001.
What traits do Zurich and Schindler, both traditional Swiss companies, share? They look back on 150 years
of history, and they combine typical Swiss values like security, quality and reliability.
What can both be proud of?
We and Zurich remain faithful to our traditional values while driving innovation in our respective industries.
Fleeing Eritrea, Zerom Kiflay made his way through the Sahara Desert to Libya and took a
dangerous sea crossing to Italy. He arrived in Switzerland in 2015. Following an internship at Zurich
he now works in Zurich’s IT department and is studying to get his degree in business informatics.
What’s different in Switzerland? The language is difficult, there are so many variations of Swiss-German!
At home I grew up speaking Tigrinya, which is distantly related to Arabic and Hebrew.
What makes your
work interesting? I like being in contact with many people. That is an important part of my job.
Do we need an office?
Over-rated or underappreciated, an office is and probably will remain as
a symbol and public face of a corporation. But spaces, like faces, can change.
What new ideas will this innovative space inspire?Photo: Stephan Birrer
The office occupies the nexus between our aspirations
and dreams, bookending the jarring start of Monday
mornings, banter around the coffee machine throughout
the week, and the golden glow of a job well done on Friday.
But do we need an office? New ways of working, made
possible by technology and a more flexible approach to
clocking in and out, are erasing the once-sharp definitions
of what constitutes the workplace, especially when we may
also work from home or wherever technology allows.
Yet the office is more than walls, windows and a canteen.
It seems to prove Karl Marx’s maxim that “society does
not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of
interrelations.”
Less philosophical perhaps, but more to the point,
as other German-speakers have noted, life isn’t a pony
farm. Sometimes we just need a place to focus and get
the job done, and an office fits the bill. While the office
traditionally has served the movers and shakers among
us, those with big desks and the antechamber dragon
that keeps supplicants at bay, most of us require real
workspaces. What workspaces should be, however, is
increasingly a blend of many different things.
People today can work from anywhere and everywhere.
A repurposed phone booth, a car, or maybe just a quiet
corner in a café. The concept of an office is limited only by
the imagination, and it has always been trendy to re-imagine
workspaces. For example, one major technology company
has ski gondolas in one of their offices and a climbing wall
in another. A Dutch firm has tested one-person offices that
look like giant bird houses.
A comfortable chair and a place to think in peace
We do need offices. Physical ones. Most employees want
to work from home some of the time. But they also want
the option to work a few days a week with colleagues,
if only to escape needy pets and restless children. Even so,
increasingly, offices must serve a variety of individual
preferences and meet different demands to satisfy the
humans who work in them. “I prefer to stay in the same
area, and where I work has to feel a bit like home,” says
one employee at Quai Zurich Campus, who focuses on
financial results. Someone else likes to brainstorm over
coffee. A third demands only a comfortable chair and
a place to think in peace, while yet another craves creative
surroundings and the opportunity to be inspired.
A new way of working requires trust
But why have an office at all, when even hiring people
has gone, in some cases, virtual? One new hire at Zurich
unable to travel due to a pandemic lockdown in 2020-21,
was onboarded via remote communications and made
to feel part of the team with a welcome video and casual
online water-cooler banter. Zurich adopted a work-from-home
policy during the COVID-19 lockdown, and it worked.
More to the point, its people worked. The flexible approach
was also instructive for the future. As regular workplaces
return to normal, some employees on any given day are
still working remotely and some in the office. Through
this, we may see each other for what we contribute, rather
than how often we dine with the boss. This new way of
working also requires trust.
“Leaders will need to have more trust in their people,
as they will not supervise them in the same way,” says
Stefan Kröpfl, a senior analyst who heads a team in Zurich’s
Group Life insurance business. Amid all these changes, he
believes that having an office is still necessary to facilitate
creative processes.
What matters is having a unified whole personified by
buildings that reach out to employees and communities.
That includes Quai Zurich Campus’s open spaces designed
not only with staff, but also with the community in mind,
such as courtyards, an auditorium, and a café open to the
public. This requires coordination and planning by architects
and interior designers, carpenters, technicians and IT
specialists, as today’s offices are multi-functional affairs
serving many different purposes and audiences.
“The boundaries between work and daily life are
increasingly blending. We need to rethink how we integrate
spaces,” says Nicole Maurerlechner of Iria Degen Interiors
AG, which designed the Quai Café, which is open to the
public as well as to the Zurich staff. “After all, nobody
knows exactly what the future will bring.”
The office as a stage
Another sometimes overlooked function of the office
is entertainment value. It provides a stage for human
dramas that unfold on a daily basis. One need look no
further than the short story published in 1907 by Swiss
author Robert Walser satirizing a typical Monday morning
in a Swiss bank where pairs of clerks sit together like
“pairs of shoes” counting the minutes until lunch hour.
The office has provided colorful stories through the
ages. Before there were Dilbert cartoons, there were clerks
in Imperial China who evaded night work by complaining
of stomach ailments, so that their duty roster acquired the
nickname ‘Journal of Suffering From Stomach Trouble.’
In Tsarist Russia, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s nihilist narrator
in Notes from the Underground, a retired civil servant,
lampoons the behavior of boorish and overly ambitious
former colleagues. Charles Dickens’ novels abound
with downtrodden ledger keepers and small-time clerks,
from shivering Bob Cratchit to the rag dealer Krook who
marvelously and mysteriously self-combusts. Franz Kafk a’s
eerie writings were very likely influenced in part by his
work in an office as a lawyer for a workmen’s accident
insurance institute in Prague.
“The boundaries
between
work and daily life
are increasingly
blending.
We need to rethink
how we
integrate spaces.
After all, nobody
knows exactly
what the future
will bring.”
The office is also a means to experiment with human
behavior, and the outcomes are instructive. In the 1990s,
a new phenomenon took hold: hot-desking. At the outset,
a popular U.S. advertising agency tried to introduce the
concept of no desk, no paper, and no shelves. It didn't work.
It just drove staff to despair. Employees began using trunks of
their cars as filing cabinets. Others hid documents in office
corners and couldn't find them again. Fortunately, technology
today is friendlier to office nomads. At Quai Zurich Campus,
phone apps let people into buildings and tell them which
desks happen to be free. Zurich employees might also
give permission to let others know where they are while at
work through a ‘finder’ app.
An office is part of us - just as we are part of it
An office also makes us feel we matter. And it gives us a
chance to present our better selves, though perhaps less
formally, after we had grown used to seeing each other
working virtually in our kitchens and living rooms during
the pandemic lockdown. “One consequence of the COVID
lockdown is that it seems to have largely killed off ties,”
as Gillian Tett observed in the Financial Times.
An office is part of us, just as we are part of it. An office
is as much a state of mind as a physical space. With the
advent of hybrid work models, and capabilities presented
by new technologies, what the office becomes could be
just about anything. Perhaps the only constant will be
that people will continue to redefine what an office is and
why we need it. That’s something that can only be done
collectively, consensually, in a workspace that brings people
together, that is fun and functional, where bricks and
mortar and in-person encounters complement virtual
interactions. An office is everything, it is nothing. It is all
of us, together, doing our best.
Combining past and present
With its dramatic prism façade, Quai Zurich Campus stands out and still fits with its surroundings.
The project’s challenges were part of the attraction for Austrian architect Adolf Krischanitz.
Quai Zurich Campus architect Adolf Krischanitz.Photo: Elfie Semotan
Zurich’s Museum Rietberg, the Superblock in the
town of Winterthur in the Swiss canton of Zurich,
or laboratory facilities on Novartis’ Campus in Basel:
Adolf Krischanitz has designed many impressive buildings
in Switzerland. But renovating and developing the Quai
Zurich Campus headquarters posed the challenge of his
lifetime.
Are you proud of the Quai Zurich Campus?
It was a massive project posing every conceivable challenge an
architect could face. The urban planning aspect was hugely
important. The new building has an impact on the city’s skyline.
And there were many other aspects – the existing edifices, their
history, the height of the buildings and so forth. Harmonizing all
that and creating a uniform whole was a very complex undertaking.
Zurich dedicated itself to the project and courageously rose to
the challenge.
What was the most difficult aspect
of integrating new into old?
The hardest was to understand how the listed buildings
already on the site and the new structure would interact.
The new structure is slightly taller. The solution was to
intersperse building compositions and open spaces.
The spaces produce a dynamic point of reference where old
is juxtaposed with new. This coordinated approach helped
to join the old and new buildings into a unified whole.
Why does the combination of glass
and sandstone work so well?
The local Bollinger sandstone façade along Alfred Escher
Street expresses an urban character and references Zurich’s
Grossmünster church and other well-known landmarks.
You have a traditional material set off by an
innovative one: the crystalline glass façade
creates a dynamic contrast to the stone.
The glass façade provides an airiness that enabled
us to build very compactly without the construction
becoming too heavy or too confined.
What makes the glass façade unique?
The glass façade was born of a desire for transparency
and innovation, but in this historical context, it must
do more than merely reflect. The prismatic surface
has the quality of reconstituting its surroundings:
it doesn’t simply mirror the neighboring buildings,
the prism breaks the reflections, transforms them and
creates something new – a tried and tested way of
underlining the beauty and brilliance of the material
while capturing the light.
What is especially Swiss about
Quai Zurich Campus? Or indeed, un-Swiss?
It is a good combination: international, on Swiss
foundations. Swiss buildings tend to be of high
quality. Zurich also places an emphasis on values.
I constructed the newest building in a 'U' shape to
complement the traditional structures already there.
But it’s primarily the foundations that set it apart
and make it a part of Zurich.
Has the way we combine
old and new changed?
We need to have greater respect for the past. These
days, we tend to have solitary buildings that work
individually but don’t harmonize with their
surroundings. Traces of the past should be visible
because that’s the only way to establish an identity.
Long-term sustainability unites the past with the
future. That’s important for an institution like
Zurich, which can look back on a long history while
setting its sights on the future.
What should people feel when
entering Quai Zurich Campus?
Spaciousness, versatile durability thanks to robust,
high-quality materials, and freely accessible open
spaces. It should feel like a harmonious whole in
which no single element is more important than
another. No contrived construction or polished
technical installations, no color or material used
in isolation. The aim is to create a balance between
diverse elements that ultimately merge, creating
a cumulative, intangible effect. In its overall
harmony, the space should seem to be a continuum,
a flow that captures all the senses, as it were –
and encourages us to look ahead.
Signs of the times
Can we get rid of it? No!
Discoveries in Zurich’s archives.
A company’s archives houses its memories. Zurich’s
corporate archives – all 2,600 linear meters of
them –contain not only files and documents, but
also about 500 truly special objects collected by the archive
team over the years. Each of these objects has a story
to tell.
Kiddy car The classic kiddy car is fire-engine red – but this edition of the cult toy is Zurich blue (2018). Photo: Henrik Nielsen
Hangover remedy When clubs were still known as discos, a VITA agent put together this anti-hangover kit (circa 1990). Photo: Henrik Nielsen
Seismoscope Zhang Heng invented the first earthquake detector in 132 A.D. This replica belonged to a Zurich risk engineer. Photo: Henrik Nielsen
Bunny Zurich to love: this cuddly bunny key fob was a client giveaway in 2015. Cute, isn’t it? Photo: Henrik Nielsen
Golf set Former CEO James Schiro’s passion for golf was apparent in the Zurich putting kit (2007). Photo: Henrik Nielsen
Metal sign In 1895, Zurich (at the time still with the ü) advertised for its accident and liability insurance on metal signs. Photo: Henrik Nielsen
Game kit 'Stock, Wyys, Stich' cards for Jass. The popular game was an essential part of the Zurich game kit (1978). Photo: Henrik Nielsen
Leather-bound book When General Manager Heinrich Müller-Jelmoli retired, employees presented him with this book (1900). Photo: Henrik Nielsen
Key ring Similar, but different: the logo with the angular letter Z – like on this key ring – was used between 1972 and 1996. Photo: Henrik Nielsen
Mobile phone No apps, but in a sophisticated color palette: Nokia mobile phone with the Zurich logo (1997). Photo: Henrik Nielsen
Copying machine Okay, copy that. This copy press was used to reproduce important correspondence (circa 1900). Photo: Henrik Nielsen
Golden nose Didn’t anyone want it? The golden nose was devised as a prize for a competition – but never awarded (1991). Photo: Henrik Nielsen
COVID-19 kit Cleansing wipes, hand sanitizer for employees who came to the office during the pandemic (2020-2021). Photo: Henrik Nielsen
Lion sculpture Board meetings were held in the Mythenquai offices under the gaze of this lion (probably first half of the 20th century). Photo: Henrik Nielsen
Diamonds are forever
The glass panels on Quai Zurich Campus’ newest building break and refract light,
as though capturing images of our past, while offering a glimmering vision of the future.
Tons of glass that appear lighter than air.Photo: Stephan Birrer
The glazing on the outer façade of the newest
building at Quai Zurich Campus offers a glimpse
of our past and future, a kaleidoscope combining
traditional and modern elements. Quai Zurich Campus’s
most iconic feature is also a marvel of construction.
Weighing over 200 tons, the façade appears to hover
weightlessly. In fact, based on the original design, the
façade was supposed to have been different, but in a
way few would have noticed. The glass panels were first
to have been attached to stainless steel frames. Instead,
Josef Meyer Stahl und Metall AG, the company that
made them, proposed using aluminum. It took some
convincing, but given the weight, the lighter metal, which
still offers strength, proved to be the best choice. Even
with aluminum, the 824 elements still comprise what
building experts might call a static challenge.
The glass naturally has a greenish tinge according to
the suppliers, Flachglas Gruppe. The individual panes
were produced at a temperature of approximately 1,000
degrees Celsius (1,832 Fahrenheit), each consisting of
two pieces of glass heated and pressed together. A coating
inside reflects sunlight that helps keep the building’s
interior cool. Screen-printed strips of enamel were used
to conceal the joints, another challenge that required
engineering ingenuity. Many modern miracles went into
making the visionary, bold façade. But don’t forget the
real wonder – behind the glass façade, people are working
hard to bring about miracles for those who rely on Zurich,
using a blend of traditional knowledge and new ways of
thinking to create the future.
A reordering of old and new.Photo: Stephan Birrer
A few of over 800 panels in the façade.Photo: Stephan Birrer
Jobs give meaning to our lives.
Our daily actions allow us to change
the world, or even create a new one.
The Zurich native’s work expresses restraint and purity of form. Designing the public café at Quai Zurich Campus,
Iria Degen used wood and fabric to soften hard surfaces of stone, glass and concrete. The asymmetrical space is
broken by a support in the center. She left this space completely open to enliven the area that faces the outer façade.
Does having an attractive café encourage collaboration? Absolutely! A congenial atmosphere creates wellbeing and promotes
communication. That’s beneficial for teamwork.
When you enter a room, do you immediately notice what could be improved? I take in what strikes me as positive, while everything else leaves me cold. I only offer a professional opinion if someone asks for it.
Thomas Grossenbacher has nerves of steel – and lots of experience on building sites. The real-estate
specialist has successfully managed large-scale projects for decades, devising strategies and concepts,
organizing all those involved, and managing teams. The Quai Zurich Campus project was under his control.
What made this project unique?
The combination of old buildings reflecting Zurich’s heritage and new ones that will
meet the needs of the future.
Was this a personal commitment? It was an affair of the heart! That was because of the
passion of all those involved – and because I was looking forward to enjoying the best coffee in town at the Quai Café.
Saiful Chowdhury predicts what the future will bring: He analyzes developments and defines strategies in
Zurich’s life insurance business. As the father of three sons, he also works closely with Swiss schools to promote
cultural understanding. And he supports people in need with sustainable projects in his native Bangladesh.
What gets you out of bed every morning? The chance, every day, to get more out of life by having a positive,
constructive attitude, both professionally and in my personal life.
What advice do you give to those
starting careers in 2021? Take advantage of the opportunities to take responsibility. It’s all in your hands!
Marina Cardoso considers herself a customer advocate. Her passion is creating new solutions so
Zurich’s customers get the best possible experience. As part of Zurich’s ‘Make the Difference’ team,
she helps other employees improve and simplify the company and find more sustainable solutions.
What trends excite you most? Environmental sustainability (for example, re-forestation), consumer psychology and, with
gig working on the rise, the future of work.
How can insurance become more entrepreneurial and sustainable? By using
our expertise, knowledge and capabilities to protect customers in new ways, while tackling ecological and social issues.
Through her art, Mai-Thu Perret tells stories. Five of her art carpets adorn the main entrance to Quai Zurich Campus.
Born in Geneva with Vietnamese roots, she studied at the Whitney Museum of American art in New York.
Her sculptures, objects and installations have been featured in solo exhibitions in the U.S., Europe and Switzerland.
What stories do your art carpets tell? If the carpets tell a story, I guess it would be about the history of abstract art and
its relationship with issues related to craft and gender roles.
How does your art influence people’s work?
The colors,
the tactility of the woolen material, I hope, will give Quai Zurich Campus a joyful serenity and attract playful attention.
Founded in 1928, Zurich’s oldest general agency is located in Zurich-Wiedikon, a neighborhood with a large
Jewish population. Jacqueline Dubois has been committed to serving her clients there for 30 years – previously as
an employee, now as a co-owner. Her ties to the district and the Jewish community contribute to her success.
What do people who come to the agency want? They want more than an insurance policy. We’re their confidants.
They often ask, “what would you recommend, Frau Dubois?”
And what’s your answer? If I do recommend something,
it is only because I personally believe in it. I address customers’ concerns through an honest and authentic approach.
Drawing with light
The darkest shadows and the brightest places of human existence can be
found in the works of an exceptional photographer and environmentalist.
Kafue National Park, Zambia.Photo: Sebastião Salgado
The photographer is literally someone drawing
with light. For Sebastião Salgado, a photographer
might also be one who sheds light on the true nature
of things. His photos, characteristically in black and white,
illuminate people's souls and tell stories about lives
shaped by fate and environment. They demonstrate the
terrible impact of humans on nature and each other.
But there are also glimpses of hope. Having won nearly
every major photojournalism prize, recording what his
eyes saw and his heart felt, took an immense physical
and mental toll. Salgado, exhausted, sought renewal in
his native country of Brazil. He and his wife, Lélia Wanick
Salgado, in 1998, founded an ambitious project to try
to regrow part of one of the world’s formerly greatest
forests. They began on almost barren spot in the Brazilian
state of Minas Gerais. Where the Mata Atlântica, or Atlantic
Forest, had once stretched over 3,000 kilometers inland
along Brazil’s eastern coast, little remains today. But
some forest can be saved. Taking over the family farm,
the Salgados founded the Instituto Terra. It has already
planted over 2.5 million trees and is involved in other
ecological projects, a small beating heart bringing life
back to the forest. Zurich is not only sponsoring the planting
of one million trees within the Zurich Forest Project.
Zurich has also purchased a small but representative sample
of Salgado’s work: five images out of millions.
His pictures on display in Quai Zurich Campus include
the photo of a gold mine in Brazil where swarms of men
reduced to writhing creatures pursue a living prising gold
from a giant open pit. This photo caught the attention
of German fi lm maker Wim Wenders and led him to a
meeting and ultimately to make a two-hour film about the
photographer, together with Salgado’s son, Juliano. In the
film, Salgado compares the gold mine to a scene from the
dawn of time. He “could almost hear the gold whispering
in the souls of these men.” His documentary photos include
one taken in Kuwait in 1991 of an oil well set ablaze during
the war with Iraq, when hundreds of such wells were set
on fire. The heat was so intense it caused a camera lens
to deform. His photos also capture nature and humans in
some kind of equilibrium, such as one taken in the Sahara
of a lone figure in the sand dunes. Another shows a forest
on Siberut Island in West Sumatra, Indonesia, an image that
at first appears mundane. Then the eye picks out a tiny
human of the Mentawai tribe, climbing a tree to collect
durian fruit. It’s an image both humbling and heroic. There
is also a picture of a river in Kafue National Park in Zambia
against a backdrop of fog; a primeval landscape. While every
photographer sees the world in a different way, when
viewing Salgado’s photos displayed at Quai Zurich Campus,
perhaps you, too, will adjust your own personal view of
the world.
Sebastião Salgado has traveled in over 120 countries for his projects.Photo: Renato Amoroso
Regrowing the Atlantic Forest, Brazil.Photo: Sebastião Salgado
Oil well ablaze in Kuwait.Photo: Sebastião Salgado
Lone figure amid dunes in Tadrart, Algeria.Photo: Sebastião Salgado
Nonsense of the best sort
South African artist William Kentridge’s great tapestry in our main entry hall contains
a magical energy. Closer inspection reveals images of ledgers and even insurance policies.
‘L’amiral cherche une maison à louer,’ William Kentridge’s tapestry, can be admired in the Alfred Escher Street entrance.Photo: Stephan Birrer
The absurd, “with its rupture of rationality – of conventional ways of seeing … is in fact an accurate and productive
way of understanding the world... .” Recall these words of William Kentridge as you admire his great tapestry in Zurich’s
main entrance hall. Coveted by collectors, his tapestries, drawings, sculptures, animated films, even stage sets, seem
at first to defy logic. But look a little longer and they begin to make sense. His tapestry in Quai Zurich Campus is three
meters high and eight meters wide, and one of six site-specific works commissioned on the property. It dominates the wall
at the end of an 80-meter long corridor. Entitled ‘L’amiral cherche une maison à louer’ (The Admiral seeks a house to rent),
it takes its name from a Dadaist song poem performed in the infamous Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in 1916. When the work
was first created, civilized society was still reeling from the mechanized brutality of World War I. The premiere must
have been impressive. It included people on stage reciting, singing, and banging drums. Kentridge’s works often feature
collages. To produce his tapestries, he relies on the Marguerite Stephens Tapestry Studio outside Johannesburg. The
production team for Zurich’s enormous tapestry required 18 people, including the weavers. All were female except for a
few male goats that provided the mohair. The weaving studio recreates Kentridge’s collages on a vast scale, right down
to the texture of torn paper and pins. Stand back and admire the tapestry. Imagine it’s a procession, a picnic of the Dadaists.
Go with them. They’re waiting for you. If you listen, they might speak to you. Be open to their message, listen with your
senses, and respond with your heart.
‘The Migrant,’ a work by Indian artist Jagannath Panda on display in Quai Zurich Campus.Photo: Stephan Birrer
Art is omnipresent at Quai Zurich Campus: the painting ‘Pet’ by Armenian artist Armen Eloyan hangs in the Innovation Hub.Photo: Stephan Birrer
Mexican artist Mariana Castillo Deball’s ceramic wall, created especially for Zurich’s headquarters.Photo: Stephan Birrer
Does it come with vehicle insurance? Jakarta-based Ichwan Noor’s iconic ‘Beetle Sphere,’ ground floor of the ‘B’ building.Photo: Stephan Birrer
Space for creativity
Stephan Hürlemann’s studio developed
the interior design for Quai Zurich Campus.
In 2018, designer and architect Stephan Hürlemann received the Milano Design Award for his installation ‘Giants with Dwarf.’Photo: Stefan Altenburger
To what extent does furniture influence a space?
Architecture and furnishings influence each other – also in
the way their value is perceived. In a museum context, for
example, an object appears valuable, but it loses its importance
in a chaotic setting. My designs for Quai Zurich Campus
had to be of high quality and done in a way that ties together
architecture of different periods, while bringing together past
and present.
How do furnishings influence performance?
Corporate headquarters increasingly need to encompass a
variety of views, while also embodying a company’s values in
a tangible way. It‘s about inspiration and identification, and
the working environment must reflect and support that.
That’s why, among other things, I designed a specific range of
furniture for Zurich that celebrates precisely this interaction.
How can you tell whether a space ‘works’?
When it‘s used, and people like to spend time in it. I often
design rooms that can be adapted by those using them to meet
their specific needs. For Zurich, we also designed individual,
dynamic zones with mobile walls and elements. The space
will thus adapt to the people in it.
From Telelift to Twitter
Social media is just the latest development in a
long evolution of how we communicate at work.
In a single day in 2020 Zurich employees shared
660,000 chat messages and held 12,400 virtual
meetings. Traffic on our social media channels topped
three million visits. We’ve come a long way from handwritten
letters, and the days when typewriters constituted
new technology. Only in the 1930s was it possible to
make real photo copies with a machine that required a
full-time photographer. Up until the late 1950s and early
1960s, computers relied on punch cards until mainframes
as big as shipping containers arrived. Of course, digital
transformations simply happen, sometimes when we
aren’t looking and don’t notice them until they are part
of our lives.
Tons of paper moved from office to office
What, for example, happened to the in-house technology
in Zurich’s headquarters called the Telelift, a system
that transported tons of paper in containers on tracks
from office to office? It was phased out after Zurich
introduced terminals hooked to a central computer. By
1984, 100 of Zurich’s Swiss offices were connected to
the data center on a network. One day without fanfare,
the Telelift was quietly dismantled. As desktop computers
became common in the 1990s, the internet was at first
only available to employees who could demonstrate a
business need. Soon, however, without much fuss, everyone
was connected online. Social media was also making
inroads. Zurich introduced its first Twitter account in
2010. In 2015 it received global praise for a rainbow logo
on social media to mark U.S. recognition of same-sex
marriage. In 2018, Zurich introduced Workplace by Facebook
for employees, while customers also could begin to take
advantage of digital convenience, including Zurich’s
insurance for small electronic devices, bought and managed
online. We are thus protecting the same devices that bring
our customers closer to us.
A virtual component to work life
Technology is also making inroads elsewhere. Just ask
Zurich’s risk engineers. Zurich’s risk engineering team
created the award-winning digital tool Risk Advisor that
allows Zurich to do remote risk assessments for customers
just about anywhere. One inspection allowed engineers
in Mexico City to check a customer’s site in Nicaragua,
assisted by our offices in Switzerland and Panama. The
digital revolution is turning us into a connected society,
free to work, and even sing together from anywhere.
That was the case when 50 Zurich employees performed
an original Zurich song from wherever they were in 2020.
If all that digital harmony gets too much, you can put
down your devices. At least, until you are overpowered
by the need to check your social media accounts, buy
a new insurance policy online, or sing a song with your
colleagues.
Sit where you like
Open-plan offices are great – or a nuisance. They drive collaboration and drive us crazy.
Quai Zurich Campus defines the best of what a good office can do. It’s up to us to make it work.
Communal, clattering productivity in 1942.Photo: Zurich Archives
Being together in an office means making allowances
for everyone’s odd habits. There are some employees
who feel nervous sitting in large open spaces without
cover at their backs. There are those who cough, hum or
whistle, and others who hate noise. There are those who
heat up fish pies in the office microwave. Generally, there
is one person who walks around the entire floor at any
given moment in time, conducting calls on a headset, like
a wandering space alien. Some people want to sit close to
others, and others stake out the quietest corner. Some
people want to – need to – have the same desk every day.
There are those who appear in the office off and on, and
those who mainly work from home. And, there are Zurich
employees who work in remote places around the world,
like the one who, depending on the region and day, might be
dodging howler monkeys, putting up with giant chameleons,
or fighting off malaria-bearing mosquitoes.
Furniture used to reflect hierarchy
For better or worse, bringing staff together into one big
office was a practice firmly established by the 1920s.
Around that time Zurich introduced an open-plan office
in the building that used to house the Vita Life business.
Photos from back then show the office with desks arranged
in stern rows, each row occupied by well- attired employees
taking matters in hand. Putting lots of individuals together
doing standardized and repetitive tasks might have once
been considered cost-effective. It also allowed lucky
managers who had individual offices with carpeted
corridors to feel important. The German word ‘Teppichetage,’
a reference to the plush carpeted corridors of yesteryear,
still is used today when referring to directors' offices.
Furniture, too, used to be contingent upon status. A
reconstruction of an imposing former chairman’s desk
can be seen in the Quai Zurich Campus heritage center.
Approach with caution! As late as the 1990s, if an employee
was caught using a chair designated for a manager, the
chair would be snatched away. Much has changed in the
meantime, however, and the concept of open-plan has
given way to agile working. This has become more acceptable
as technology improves.
A sofa is no longer just a sofa
Employees at Quai Zurich Campus can sit (or stand or
confabulate) wherever is best-suited to the task. They may
hold meetings on comfortable furniture in co-working
spaces. Here the problem might even be to convince other
people you are in fact working, given the extreme comfort
of the surroundings. To mitigate such fears, employees
might be advised to adopt stressed and harried expressions
so as not to look too comfy. Designers like to talk about
spatial branding. Hence, at Quai Zurich Campus, a sofa is no
longer just a sofa, but rather a high-tech seating platform
indicating that work is being done with ports for charging
electronic gear. We’re not relaxing, we’re working hard!
Zurich’s buildings also stress unity. Legal, finance, risk and
HR teams work in neighborhoods. If noise in one’s own
hood gets to be too much, employees might escape to quiet
rooms. And yet, wherever one chooses to work, and how,
collaboration is maintained. Meetings might be real or
virtual. Workspaces take into account not only one’s mindset,
but also the belief that our workplace is wherever we are.
And that’s the way it should be. So, next time you’re having
a bad day at work, and the noise is distracting, keep in mind
that somewhere a colleague is facing down monkeys and
mosquitoes. Suddenly, the person yelling into the headset
next to you eating a microwaved mackerel casserole doesn’t
seem quite so bad.
Paperless, digital offices are the norm in 2021.Photo: Stephan Birrer
Inner beauty
Buildings are like people: the inner qualities are what matters. While
Quai Zurich Campus’ exterior is striking, the interiors are equally awesome.
Mirror table Designer Stephan Hürlemann reinterpreted the table that
still stands, in a new incarnation, in the anteroom to the
historic boardroom. He replaced the table’s old leather top
with black lacquered glass. The reflecting surface introduces
more light and mirrors the carefully recreated silk wallpaper. Photo: Stephan Birrer
If a building’s façade is its face to the world, its interior is its soul. Interior design and furnishings should inspire employees
and captivate guests, while making everyone feel at home. This requires special attention to design, furniture and
material. As Danish architect and interior designer Finn Juhl put it: “You can’t create happiness with beautiful objects,
but you can destroy quite a lot of happiness with ugly ones.” At Quai Zurich Campus, old meets new, historical pieces
interact with modern ones, and over a century of tradition joins modern innovations. It shows how timeless classics can
co-exist with new and bold pieces. In the entrance, for example, Gerrit Rietveld’s ‘Utrecht’ armchair from 1935 reposes
happily next to Mai-Thu Perret’s contemporary carpet, which Perret made specially for Zurich. In the Innovation Hub,
spaces are dynamic, a concept given life by room dividers that move. These ‘dancing walls’ shift to create whatever type
of rooms are needed at any given time: spaces that adapt to people’s needs and not the other way around. Mobile walls
allow people to rethink the workspace, and possibly the very work they’re doing. A solution that gives heart to soul.
Oak reception desk Quai Zurich Campus’ main entrance boasts an oak reception desk that stands on three legs. The design, custom built by Stephan Hürlemann, seems to float and aims to bridge the gap between visitors and people behind the counter. Unlike conventional reception areas that create a distance, it thus serves as a place that welcomes encounters. Photo: Stephan Birrer
Geometric chandeliers A great number of chandeliers, some
circular and many rectangular in
shape, cast a magical glow throughout
the interiors of Quai Zurich Campus’
buildings. Designed by architect Adolf
Krischanitz, the lighting reprises the motif
of the prismatic exterior façade but brings
it inside on a smaller scale. Photo: Stephan Birrer
Waiting area The waiting area on the
third floor of historic
Building A invites visitors
to linger. Design classics
such as the Utrecht chair
by Gerrit Rietveld from
1935, the side table ‘D.555.1’
by Gio Ponti dated 1954 -
1955, combined with
modern avantgarde – like
the Bonavita carpet by
Suzanne Sharp – allow an
interplay of colors and
shapes in the historic space. Photo: Stephan Birrer
String of pearls The staircases in the older buildings on Quai Zurich Campus, including those in the original and first building on the site, completed in 1900, have been restored to their original beauty. They are now presented, literally, in a new light. Adolf Krischanitz used lights that almost, if a little imagination is used seem to resemble strings of pearls. Photo: Simon Habegger
Creativity implies responsibility. As we
change how we do things, we learn more
about our world and ourselves.
Assessing existing risks is hard. Jelena Buha’s job at Zurich goes beyond that, to include evaluating
future risks. Helped by a doctorate in chemical engineering, her daily work includes evaluating the impact
that microplastics and things like pesticides or synthetic hormones might have on the environment.
What exactly do you do? I analyze complex information and make it accessible to everyone.
This helps raise awareness of current and future risks.
How can we reconcile innovation and risks? New ideas involve risks. Risks are part of life. With the right approach, we can achieve positive innovation.
Roland Siegwart, professor of autonomous systems at ETH Zurich, launched one of the world’s first modern drones
in his laboratory about 20 years ago. Since then, the researcher and his team have continued to develop these aerial
devices. He hopes drones will soon be increasingly used to help prevent disasters such as forest fires and landslides.
How can drones prevent natural disasters?
By identifying risks at an early stage. For example, discovering a tree that has
been struck by lightning and may ignite a forest fire.
And what’s your next project? One dream of mine is that drones should fly
over all of Switzerland every month. That could help us to better identify small surface movements to predict landslides.
Deepak Subbarao helps Zurich’s employees save thousands of hours of routine work each year so they can spend more
time with customers and less on repetitive tasks. Father of two daughters, he has degrees in engineering, IT and holds
an MBA. He likes helping kids learn programming through CoderDojo communities and teaches technology in schools.
What does automation mean to you? It is just a way to make work simpler, less repetitive and more productive. It is an enabler.
What motivates you? Using technology at work, I like to help my colleagues solve different types of business
problems. Pushing the boundaries and questioning the status quo, I enjoy using technology to transform how we work.
As one of four co-founders of the startup Parametrix Insurance in Tel Aviv, Israel, Neta Rozy
develops innovative business interruption insurance. Customer-focused solutions
helped make Parametrix a global finalist in the Zurich Innovation Championship 2020.
What makes an entrepreneur? You need to be very passionate about the problem you are solving. I like the freedom to move fast,
to be able to discover and create, and keep up with changing trends in technology.
Do you have any hobbies? You mean there’s
something to do besides work all day? Just kidding! I enjoy living in an interesting city, and I try to go running on the beach if I get time.
Isabelle Rottmann gave up her job at a Swiss bank to set up a health-tech company, and develop
an app called Uplyfe, which uses artificial intelligence to identify symptoms of disease and promote
personal health. She was also a contestant in the Zurich Innovation Championship 2020.
What is innovation? For me, it means developing technology that promotes people’s health and helps
them to understand how to stay well.
What do you plan next?
To use our app to improve a highly developed
but dehumanized health system, and create innovation that can be applied on a global scale.
His business card calls him Creator, Initiator, Chairman. Frank M. Rinderknecht has been building and
developing concept cars – and constantly reinventing mobility – for decades. Zurich collaborated with Rinspeed
on the MetroSnap, a self-driving concept e-car to transport passengers and goods safely and conveniently.
How have you remained so innovative for so long? Innovation has nothing to do with age. You need to be
dynamic, listen to your gut instincts and believe in an idea. Creativity is about doing things.
And what’s the price? You leave your comfort zone. There’s no security. Success and failure are twin siblings.
Home to a smarter future
Technology develops in ways we don’t expect. Rest assured, Quai Zurich Campus
has incorporated future unknowns into its smart building design.
Smart buildings: monitoring functions in real time.Photo: Akenza
In William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer, the character
Dixie Flatline is immortalized as a kind of artificial
intelligence construct. By the story’s end, Dixie begs to
be erased. Even in science fiction, it seems, technology has
a finite lifespan. In the real world (ask anyone who just
bought a new phone) technology changes at a breakneck
pace. Recall that at the start of the latest millennium
good connectivity meant a modem speed of 56,000 bits
per second.
Today, connection speeds have increased by multiples
of thousands of times that. If future smart devices link
via satellite swarms or are replaced by something we
cannot yet imagine, Quai Zurich Campus should still be
able to adapt. And flexibility matters. In a world where
bathroom scales and salt-shakers, in fact just about any
device that can save time, money, and promote health, have
become intelligent, the lifecycle of gadgetry is increasingly
short. “In technology, the only constant is change. Being
adaptable is how we thrive. We can bring the benefits
of that to our customers,” according to Ericson Chan,
Group Chief Information and Digital Officer at Zurich.
His desire to equip Quai Zurich Campus with the latest
in digital convenience includes introducing the voluntary
biometric technology used in speed gates at the main
entrance. It's the first such system installed in any Zurich
office worldwide.
Ever hear of digital twins? The technology NASA uses
to design spacecraft is also at home in Quai Zurich Campus,
where virtual replicas assist in tasks like updating software
and booking meeting rooms. On the site, 2,000 sensors
monitoring everything from CO2 levels to people flows
collect about 750 million data points a year. That should
be enough to spot potential for improvements. The data
are anonymous. No Big Brother will rat out those too lazy
to walk up a flight of stairs, or who hang out by the coffee
machine for hours. Smart devices linked to the sensors
communicate with a central platform via LoRaWAN; what
sounds like a Sci-Fi character is in fact a long-range wireless
area network that helps to reduce the power drain from
smart devices. To achieve peak building intelligence,
Quai Zurich Campus has collaborated with several young
innovative technology companies, including the Swiss
startup called Akenza, which provided Quai Zurich
Campus’s central connectivity management system – its
brain. This runs on a unified Internet of Things (IoT)
platform. Another young company, Spica Technologies,
worked with Zurich to develop an app which has been
christened ‘One Zurich.’ It offers employees ways to book
things they need (rooms, food, building access), might
want (an empty room to enjoy a quiet moment of respite)
or use frequently (information about scheduled events,
train schedules).
Our table will serve you now Waiting on tables? At Quai Zurich Campus, there are also a couple of
tables that wait on you. Our interactive tablet-style tables, including
one in the foyer, use the same technology found in smart devices.
They’re just much bigger. Swipe a finger to explore different aspects
of Zurich: take a 360-degree tour of our headquarters, learn more
about Zurich’s support for charitable organizations (for fun, try out
the Wheel of Fortune app, which awards donations to charities Zurich
supports), and learn about Zurich’s products and services. Or choose
the app that will introduce you to Zurich’s history. Once you feel ready,
you’ll be equipped to explore on your own. Now that’s table service! Photo: Stephan Birrer
Sensors to keep you awake
The foot soldiers in the tech revolution are as likely to
be digital as human. The cleaning crew at Quai Zurich
Campus comprises not only highly-trained humans, but
also a knee-high cyborg-ish cobot, which unlike a robot,
doesn’t replace people, just works with them. The cobot
does boring things like repetitive vacuuming. The human
cleaners – including up to 10 regular daytime staff – carry
not just the usual cleaning paraphernalia, but also digital
tablets. Staff provided by ISS Facility Services AG also
include about 20 in the evenings doing noisier maintenance
jobs. The cleaners carry tablets that provide information
supplied by IoT sensors and algorithms engineered by
the Swiss company Soobr (the name is Swiss-German
for ‘clean’). Sensors include those that measure how often
a restroom door has been opened, or which desks have
been used. Consulting their tablets, cleaners focus on spaces
that need attention.
If people are breathing or moving around inside Quai
Zurich, smart technology knows they are there. The
Swedish company Elsys, set up as a spinoff from Umeå
University, provided the sensors that measure CO2 in
Quai Zurich Campus’s facilities. If sensors notice higher
CO2 concentrations, ventilation systems are adjusted
accordingly even before anyone starts to yawn. Sensors
monitoring people flows at Quai Zurich Campus are
supplied by Xovis, whose systems are also used in airports,
for example, to regulate escalator speed to control queues,
or tell travelers how long they have to wait in line at security
check-in. Installed at Quai Zurich Campus, its sensors
see in 3D, like a human eye, measuring anonymous traffic,
which can tip off cleaners and tell employees which seats
are free. Who knows what new gadgetry we will rely on in
a year, or two, or five? At least at Quai Zurich Campus,
technology will have the capability to segue from today’s
big thing to tomorrow’s. The future is hard to predict. What
we understand as technology may change. But whatever
is installed at Quai Zurich Campus, it should help us to
remain a step ahead.
Tablets show cleaners which areas need service.Photo: Soobr
Photo: Eyefactive
Feeling good
Quai Zurich Campus is the first property in Europe and only the third worldwide to
achieve the highest platinum level certification for both sustainability and for wellness.
Resident anti-stress team in action.Photo: Stephan Birrer
Most people don’t notice, at least, at first, how
their workspace affects their health. Yet, even on
a subliminal level, where we work can make a major
difference to how we feel and our productivity. Healthy
offices promote physical and mental well-being. That
should be the case for the Quai Zurich Campus where
buildings meet the highest level platinum certification
of the widely respected international Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design (LEED) building standard.
They also are designed to get a platinum certification
for WELL, a rating system that measures and monitors
how buildings affect human health. And, the buildings
satisfy stringent Swiss Minergie standards. How hard
was it to meet all the requirements?
Shellac as a challenge
In the case of the Quai Zurich Campus consider just
one word. Shellac. According to Swiss Minergie-ECO
standards, paints and coatings may contain only up to
one percent ethanol. But to achieve historical accuracy, the
renovation of our oldest building, constructed in 1900,
required authentic shellac with higher concentration of
ethanol than is now permitted. Lots of ventilation prior
to moving in allowed Zurich to maintain historical
preservation guidelines and still ensure an interior
environment safe for humans. Shellac used in the
historic spaces wasn’t the only challenge. Historical
accuracy also called for a dark slate roof on the oldest
building. But dark slate would have absorbed too much
heat, contributing to heat islands which may increase
global warming and contravene LEED guidelines.
A beautiful but toxic green
The rooftop solution? Using an artificial tile slightly lighter in
color that appears nearly identical to natural slate. Another
issue was the patina on the copper figures on the roof;
the copper has weathered to a beautiful green. The green
is copper nitrate, which is toxic. Not something you want
in the environment. To prevent copper nitrate from flowing
into groundwater, a heavy-metal filter was installed,
according to Georg Schulte, head of sustainable building at
CSD Engineers, which supported Zurich in applying for the
LEED and Minergie-ECO certification. But sustainability
is not just about simply measuring things. It includes
how people work, and feel. “People’s behavior is directly
influenced by both physical and intangible building
elements,” according to Marta Bouchard, a consultant at
Intep, the company that helped Quai Zurich Campus
work for its WELL certification.
Rooms with a view
Health and wellness considerations include encouraging
people with digital signage, if possible, for example,
prompting them to take the stairs more often. Healthy
food choices in dining areas are given prominence. To
make sure everyone feels comfortable using restrooms,
Quai Zurich Campus will include single-user bathrooms
denoted by gender-neutral signs.
Proximity to nature helps: “just like taking a walk in
the forest, people feel much calmer when they experience
a connection with the natural world,” says Intep’s Marta
Bouchard. As an example, all workstations at Quai Zurich
Campus are placed near windows with a view to the
outdoors, trees or lake. Window planters with living green
plants further enhance the feeling of being close to nature.
Exposure to daylight throughout the building should help
reduce tiredness and offset the winter blues. Windows open
to admit fresh air. Non-toxic cleaning products are used.
Blankets and a flexible dress code
At the end of the day, how we feel is highly individual.
Ask anyone who has ever worked in an office: half of
one’s co-workers are too cold, and half are too hot. Never
fear. Besides a flexible dress code and operable windows,
blankets are available, washed weekly.
Plants can be soothing and energizing.Photo: Simon Habegger
What do machines learn?
Facial recognition technology can help to keep buildings secure. But when it
comes to learning there are things machines can do, and things they can’t.
Hello! Welcome to my world.Photo: Stephan Birrer
English mathematician Augusta Ada King, the
Countess of Lovelace, believed machines only did
what humans told them. Based on her ideas formulated
on a proto computer designed by Charles Babbage in the
1820s, it took 200 years to teach machines to recognize
us and let us into buildings. With the technology available,
however, the operation requires only a fraction of a second;
a simple solution making keys, badges and fumbling for
lost IDs obsolete. That seems pretty smart. Of course,
you don’t have to agree to use it. At Quai Zurich Campus,
biometric technology is completely voluntary. Employees
may also enter using an app on their phone, which gives
them info about available seating, for example, and works
like a mini GPS. Or they may still opt for plastic badges.
But unlike our physical characteristics, badges can get
left somewhere. In the old days, when employees used
only badges, there were even incidents of people getting
trapped inside high-security gates. Sometimes they called
colleagues to rescue them. Or, as one luckless employee
stuck trying to exit late one night from an Alfred Escher
Street property did, they called the fire department. But,
back to our intelligent machine.
One of those people it has learned to recognize passing
through Quai Zurich Campus' speed gates is Vincenzo
Salipante. His job title at Zurich is Automation Program
Lead. What he actually does, is think of ways to make
other people’s lives easier. What he really loves to do is
learn and pass along what he knows. His team has provided
a centralized way to share and re-use knowledge related
to data, and he’s developed online training courses for
colleagues such as one entitled ‘Managing by Numbers.’
In such ways he can share his passion for knowledge
and learning. After he obtained his first degree, a Master’s
in Philosophy (specialization in Mathematical Logic,
summa cum laude) from the University of Rome in 1999,
he received a fellowship to study at the Institute for
Logic, Language and Computation at the University of
Amsterdam. From there, still desiring knowledge, he
pursued a Ph.D. at the University of Bern’s Institute of
Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, which he
received in 2005. In 2006, he joined Zurich as a trainee, and
continued to learn. With Zurich’s full encouragement he
received an executive MBA at the Institute for Management
Development (IMD) in Lausanne in 2014. In 2020, still
learning while working at Zurich, he completed a yearlong
course of studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology (ETH) to receive a Diploma of Advanced
Studies in Data Science.
Based on information, machines can learn to recognize
us. But artificial intelligence doesn't involve emotions. An
AI isn't happy to see Vincenzo Salipante. It’s not curious,
it is just a universal approximator. The AI doesn’t seem
to aspire to learn new things, or change jobs. Perhaps the
question shouldn’t be if computers can learn, but why
more people don’t learn more? Unlike computers, we are
still free to follow our passions to find out new things.
The best brains
The humble algorithm seems to understand us.
But how well do we understand it?
People who spend a lot of time analyzing the
benefits of artificial intelligence, or ‘AI,’ like to say
that if the only tool you have is a hammer, then every
problem will look like a nail. Since its very beginnings,
insurance has used data to assess and price risks. Major
changes are afoot in how insurers use sophisticated
technology to better understand risks and protect their
customers. Based on the hammer analogy, those familiar
with AI might be tempted to think all problems can be
solved with the right algorithm. But a human brain can
perform an estimated 200 trillion operations per second
and has an ethical component to its thinking that machine
intelligence still lacks.
Keeping humans in the equation
AI algorithms are sometimes considered ‘statistics on
steroids.’ Where there is data, there is often bias, a
fact that must be taken into account when training AIs.
“Zurich is devoting a lot of time to selecting, vetting
and connecting the data we use to calibrate our AI
algorithms,” says Gero Gunkel, Chief Operating Officer
at Zurich Customer Active Management (ZCAM).
That includes stress-testing the models to avoid bias
and distorted decision-making. Data are highly sensitive
assets. While cooperating with authorities to uphold
privacy and data protection, Zurich, through its
Group-wide data commitment, also goes beyond
legal requirements, promising never to sell customers’
personal data nor to share personal data without being
fully transparent. While Zurich uses AI in many
applications, it is careful to do so with the proper
safeguards in place. Once these issues and concerns
are addressed, AI can offer interesting perspectives,
for example, recommending insurance and other
products or services in the same way well-known
online consumer platforms might.
AI applications that may save human lives
For commercial customers, AIs allow Zurich to respond
to routine queries, freeing up time for more human
personalization and interaction where needed. But this
is likely to be only the beginning. An AI can review data
much faster, and usually more accurately than humans.
It is increasingly being used to spot insurance fraud by
flagging anomalies. Using a more nuanced, contextual
approach, an AI can be trained to analyze so-called
unstructured data and draw inferences, making it less
likely to flag something that might be unusual but is not
fraud. AIs might also, in future, be widely used to analyze
risks: seismic data, perhaps, allowing more accurate
prediction of earthquakes, or tsunamis, or even volcanic
eruptions. They may take risk-spotting to the next level
and could be used to see risks well before danger arises.
Together, AI and humans can achieve a lot.
Life hacks
Expect the unexpected. That might be
the appropriate motto for hackathons.
Fast-paced and collaborative: HackZurich has grown into a global event.Photo: HackZurich
At Quai Zurich Campus, Zurich seeks to emulate
the innovative spirit of collaborative, fast-paced
gatherings called hackathons. ‘Hack’ in this case
means a way to do things better – as in, ‘life hacks.’ “An
unforgettable adventure” is how its organizers describe
a hackathon held annually in the city of Zurich that is
sponsored by a variety of companies and organizations,
including Zurich. From its inception in 2014, the annual
Hack Zurich has grown to be a premier, global event
attracting contestants from all over the world. The same
innovative spirit that powers participants in these gatherings
is what we strive for every day at Quai Zurich Campus.
Companies like Zurich take part in HackZurich because
it opens a window on new and different ways to develop
solutions for customers, and the type of thinking that goes
on there is something it wants to emulate in-house, too.
“I’m always impressed by a solution I didn’t expect,” says
Joel Agard, who leads Zurich in exploring ways to be
more innovative, and is also an advisor at HackZurich.
Sandra Hauser, Head of Transformation and Technology in
Zurich Switzerland, calls HackZurich “an opportunity
to set up challenges aligned with our purpose, that can
inspire our own tech teams.”
While HackZurich runs for just a weekend, from before
midnight on a Friday to a Sunday evening when prizes
are handed out, those intrepid employees at Zurich want
to capture that spirit every day. In the ‘innovation hub,’
basically an engine room powering the thinking that goes
on to revolutionize the business, someone is even right
now no doubt working on great ideas that – just maybe –
will also revolutionize your life.
Taking the pulse of health
We like to think about health and talk about it, but taking steps actually to be
and stay healthy and motivated is a challenge. Can an insurer like Zurich help?
Meet Vita: the people’s Parcours.Photo: Zurich Archives
Don’t sweat! For anyone who has ever suffered
through a passionate discussion about diets and
exercise as people puffed on cigarettes, it’s obvious
we humans are conflicted about what constitutes good
health. We know that exercising and eating the right
food, walking on occasion and getting enough sleep, is
good for us. And we love fitness gadgets and apps. Yet
sometimes it’s hard to get and stay motivated. Zurich
has long sought to educate people about, and promote
health. In 2020 it launched its global LiveWell business.
As one of many innovations Zurich has introduced over
the years to help people to lead better, healthier lives,
LiveWell stands out due to its sophisticated technology
and personalized approach. “Our goal is to give customers
options on ways to improve their health and wellbeing
throughout their whole lives,” according to Helene
Westerlind, Chief Executive Officer of LiveWell.
‘The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Came
Off’ is a real newspaper headline about a man who died
in 1932 after regularly drinking a commercial radium-isotope-laced health tonic.
Fads come and go, of course.
But Zurich’s customers have traditionally relied on its
sound advice and practical approach, eschewing quack
cures. Zurich set up its life insurance company, Vita, in
1922, and became the first European life insurer on the
continent to offer free medical check-ups to policyholders.
Vita’s popular Adviser brochure series gave tips on staying
mentally and physically healthy (get enough sleep, control
your temper) and promoted life’s simple pleasures,
like walking barefoot. Zurich’s grounded, common-sense
ideas included a new way to stay fit: blazing a health
trail – literally – as an innovator, introducing the Vita
Parcours in the late 1960s and 1970s. These outdoor
fitness circuits encouraged everyone to go outside and
get moving.
Combining a running track with 15 to 20 stations for
strength training and agility, the trails provided fitness
for everyone at no cost – a true innovation! The Vita
Parcours, open 24 hours a day, year-round, also introduced
Swiss to what was then a strange new sport – jogging.
When Vita was rebranded in the 1990s, the Vita name
was kept for the fitness paths. Today there are about 500
of the courses in Switzerland, and at last count, over
40 abroad. Every generation seems to discover them
anew. For example, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced
gyms and sports halls to close, the trails saw a surge in
popularity. The New York Times noted in an article in
May 2020 that the outdoor circuits “credited with bringing
exercise to millions of Europeans in the 1970s … are
busier than they have been in years.” Zurich remains
a trailblazer in the interests of health. But, no matter
how sophisticated the approach might be, in the end,
people will still need to get out there and work to stay
healthy. Okay, maybe sweat a little.
Nature is really the best coach. Staying fit, late 1960s.Photo: ETH-Bibliothek / Comet Photo AG
Bringing exercise to millions of people: Vita Parcours.Photo: Zurich Archives
We are partly of the future, and partly
of the past. Every day we become those
whom others will remember.
Fragments of decorative plaster ceilings were discovered in the oldest building on the Quai Zurich
Campus. For almost a year, Antonio Pungitore labored in the entrance hall and staircases to restore these.
His craft is his vocation. He first got into it while helping his uncle during a summer vacation.
What is so fascinating about old ceilings? Every object tells its own story. There are no rules when it comes to restoration,
there’s simply experience. I've been exploring materials and techniques for 40 years, and I trade professional insights with plasterers
all over the world.
What makes you proud? When I succeed in perfectly imitating the magnificent craftsmanship of the past.
53 | Director of Urban Development, City Of Zurich
The City of Zurich is a place where thousands of people work and live. It is also a place to enjoy urban
life, a shoppers’ paradise, and a green oasis with lots of nature. A geographer by training, Anna Schindler
works with the city’s urban developers to make sure Zurich is a great city, now and in the future.
Why is Zurich special?
No other city in the world offers such an urban lifestyle with nature in such close proximity.
What challenges does Zurich face? The city has little land; about 70 percent of is privately owned. That
makes Quai Zurich Campus, with its combination of public space and corporate enterprise, all the more precious.
Christian Harb leads excavations to recover artefacts and information from ancient sites including one
discovered beneath Quai Zurich Campus. In his spare time, the project manager at the archaeology Department
of Canton Zurich likes to hike, and sometimes take excursions along rivers in a collapsible boat.
What are your favorite digs so far? My first, a former Roman settlement in Vindonissa. Zurich’s site was also exciting. Due to
excellent preservation, wooden objects made 5,000 years ago looked almost new.
What surprises you about your work? The mix
of people. On Zurich’s site we had archeologists working, and even upholsterers, ceramists, a graphic designer and a carpenter.
Zurich’s archives are not only a repository of files and artifacts that constitute the memory of a global company; they
are also the domain of Thomas Inglin and his team. For him, the archived material that end-to-end would stretch over
2,600 meters, is an “infinite source of inspiration.” Inglin started to build the archives when he joined Zurich in 1995.
How do you record history? By asking questions and trying to answer them.
What can
we learn from Zurich’s history? The company as a whole has far more experience and knows much
more than any individual. We need to use that tremendous knowledge consciously and frequently.
Christine Barz has spent countless hours inside Quai Zurich Campus’ historic
buildings. As a monument curator she serves as intermediary to ensure historic structures
are well preserved and still can meet future needs. It’s a constant balancing act.
What was your biggest surprise during renovation? On the first floor of the main building constructed around 1900 we discovered
hidden paintings on a plaster ceiling. These were carefully preserved as part of the overall restoration.
What do old buildings tell us?
That history is a continuum. Old buildings should be put to good use and filled with life. We don’t want to live in museums!
As one of a team of professionals at Brunner Schreinerei Innenausbau, Lukas Rühl is a master cabinetmaker who
is passionate about historic artefacts. As a child he restored old furniture, inspired by his great-great grandfather,
also a cabinetmaker. As a hobby, he also collects historic clothing matching the interiors he restores.
Does luck play a role in your work? In Zurich’s oldest building we were really fortunate to find a few threads of the original
wallpaper stuck to a nail.
And what role does science play? A lab determined this remnant was made of silk and cotton and what
dyes were used. With photos from Zurich’s archive, we were then able to produce an authentic reconstruction of the wallpaper.
The Lion King
If natural selection alone chose sculptors, with his massive build and force of personality,
Urs Eggenschwyler would have been one of the most successful examples of his species.
Sculptor Urs Eggenschwyler shown with his favorite subject.Photo: Stadtarchiv Stadt Zürich
Perhaps certain sculptors also adopt the tone and
demeanor of their subjects. Urs Eggenschwyler,
not only in his work but also in his private life lived,
breathed and cohabited with his favorite subject: the lion.
On occasion it is said he attempted to dine like these feline
predators. Zurich city’s heraldic lions are not constrained
to archetypes. The city’s noble symbol might be portrayed
as a lion rampant, or a lion resting.
Eggenschwyler’s lions, by virtue of his close association,
were always true to life. Along with other lions, for example,
one guarding the harbor of Enge, and four lions on Stauffacher
Bridge, he created the lions on the Breitinger Street side
of the oldest Quai Zurich Campus building, and may also
have contributed others.
He was born in 1849 in Subingen in the Swiss canton
of Solothurn, when the world was re-assessing nature.
Darwin was postulating theories of evolution in ‘On the
Origin of Species’ and in art, too, the world was turning
from idealized and stylized depictions toward more
naturalist renderings.
After attempting to study sculpture in Munich, which
proved difficult due to his growing deafness, Eggenschwyler
began studying animals in real life: in zoos, and through
dissections. His sketch books show his interests extended
to giraffes and elephants, and in Berne, Egg enschwyler
provided two bronze bears for the Swiss Federal Parliament
building. But his sculptures, sketches and paintings always
returned to his true love, the lion.
Two of Eggenschwyler’s four lion temperaments on Quai Zurich Campus.Photo: Zurich Archives
Out for a stroll with his favorite feline
And, eventually, as to be expected for someone who didn’t
do things halfway, Eggenschwyler got hold of the real
thing. He set up a menagerie in the Zurich Milchbuck
neighborhood. Live lions proved to be a hit. A photo from
the time shows men, all looking as serious as it is possible
to look, as they view one of Eggenschwyler’s lions. The
great cat is lounging on a bench, one paw dangling. It might
even be yawning. Lions are exciting to humans, but to
lions, we are probably rather boring creatures. It is said
that some pet owners even had no qualms about giving
up their own housecats to feed his lions. Eggenschwyler
re fused. Instead he kept the cats, adopting them as part
of his menagerie. Lions in mini-format.
Some stories about legends are apocryphal. But there
are quite reliable accounts that Eggenschwyler took his
favorite lion on strolls through Zurich. After some of the
more timid populace became concerned about the safety
of such practices, he started walking his lions on a chain,
and only after dark when, presumably, after a few beers
those who saw him might have thought they were seeing
an unusually large dog.
If true power resides in magnanimity, true kingliness
expresses itself in restraint and intelligence. Eggenschwyler’s
lions have nobility and character. Eggenschwyler’s four
lions on the oldest Quai Zurich Campus building express
the four temperaments: sanguine, melancholic, phlegmatic
and choleric.
Perhaps all of us should consider ourselves more often
as specimens for closer study. Taking in Zurich’s lions, ask
yourself which one you most closely resemble. Are you
cheerful, sad, calm, or angry? Are you feeling caged? Are
you roaming free? What sort of lion are you?
One of the Eggenschwyler lions watching over Stauffacher Bridge in Zurich.Photo: Baugeschichtliches Archiv der Stadt Zürich
Eggenschwyler’s cast stone lion still guards a harbor near Quai Zurich Campus.Photo: Baugeschichtliches Archiv der Stadt Zürich
The future of history
Everything humans create, record, write or leave behind is a potential source for historians.
Everything that is destroyed leaves a gap in our understanding of the past.
Fit for the future: digital research space.Photo: Markus Loke
One does not need to go as far as the famous maxim
of Roman law: quod non est in actis, non est in
mundo (what isn’t in records doesn’t exist), to grasp
the fact that something which leaves no trace or whose
traces are willfully erased will be forgotten. Artefacts and
records must be archived to remain useful. If not, they
inevitably vanish over time. The work of archiving is not
done by humans alone. The remains of the lake dwellers
preserved in the sediments of Lake Zurich beneath Quai
Zurich Campus demonstrate that. People or natural forces
can preserve what will ultimately shape what we remember,
and how.
Today most documents and records in Zurich’s
Corporate Archives are in digital format, and this poses
new technical challenges, including making sure there
is the right electronic storage on hand. But someone still
needs to decide what to keep. Since it was established as
an organizational institution, Corporate Archives has been
in charge of deciding what to retain. It tries to document
the decision-making processes within the company, as
well as who made the decisions, the things that guided
and influenced them and how Zurich interacts with its
various stakeholders.
Corporate Archives houses a broad collection of
records, documents (including advertising posters),
recordings of all types (photographs, audiotapes, films)
and objects (promotional items, business machines, even
neckties). But Corporate Archives was only established
in 1995. Sometimes we don’t know why certain items
were kept. Before Corporate Archives was set up as a
formal unit, some records were probably retained for
obvious reasons, while others seem to have maintained
by chance. Documents with legal relevance are kept
in most corporate archives, including minutes of board
meetings and annual general meetings, annual reports,
and the articles of incorporation, as well as business
licenses. In Zurich’s archives, there is also a complete
series of premiums, claims, and expenses from the 1880s
to the 1980s. Such statistics form the scientific core of
the insurance business.
Sometimes, the longer that
documents are kept, the less
willing people are to throw
them out. When they are
rediscovered, they inspire awe.
But why keep voluminous books of letters sent between
Zurich’s home office and its general agents in Switzerland
and branch offices across Europe from the 1880s and
1890s? Sometimes, the longer that documents are kept,
the less willing people are to throw them out. When
they are rediscovered, they inspire awe. This may have
been the case with the old correspondence, which today
provides invaluable glimpses of how Zurich conducted
its business in the late nineteenth century – from underwriting
decisions and risk selection to settling claims. The
archives also house nearly complete accounting books from
the start of the business in 1873 to 1930 when accounting
was converted to punch card machines. There are also
hundreds of journals, ledgers and so called brouillons,
in which every transaction (payments and receipts) was
initially recorded. Some of these volumes are very large.
The ledgers measure about 70 by 40 centimeters. And they
are heavy.
All together, they weigh tons. Considerable effort was
needed to retain these. These heavy tomes appear to have
been moved several times, even transported between
buildings. Zurich aspires to be one of the most responsible
businesses in the world. Corporate Archives is a witness
to how we behave as a company, demonstrating that the
form of governance of a public limited company has
remained surprisingly resilient and constant over the years,
despite changes going on all around.
As if to support Tomasi di Lampedusa’s axiom: Deve
cambiare tutto perché niente cambi (everything must change
so that nothing changes).
Water under the bridge
The lake views from Zurich’s headquarters
might have been very, very different!
Zurich transformed: Quai Bridge pilings, 1883.Photo: Baugeschichtliches Archiv der Stadt Zürich / Dominik Lenz
Standing on Zurich City’s Quaibrücke spanning the
Limmat, passersby can admire the peaks off in the
distance – is that Twäriberg, Sandgipfel, or Bös Fulen?
And they can thank Arnold Bürkli, Zurich’s former city
engineer, for the view. If not for him, perhaps Zurich, the
company, would have had its headquarters by a river, or
next to a rail line.
The future of Zurich’s lakefront was up in the air in
1873 when an ambitious engineer, Kaspar Wetli, presented
a plan to build an ‛iron ring’ of rail lines around Zurich’s
lake basin. Trains would have dominated the beauty spots
where today tourists snap pictures for social media, and
Zurich, the company, might have later chosen another part
of town for its headquarters or had to live with freight trains
rumbling next to its property.
Mud, hard work and patience
Thankfully, Wetli’s proposal was rejected by Zurich’s
citizens, who instead decided to turn the lake shore into
a prestigious showcase. They held contests, and by 1881
Bürkli’s proposal to develop the shoreline got underway.
According to local historian Roman G. Schönauer, the end
result was to turn Zurich from a rather insular river town
into the open city looking outward – the city by the lake.
But it’s not easy building up a lakeshore. Bürkli’s plans
required hard work and patience. At one point an entire
pier for the new bridge connecting Bellevue and Enge sank
without a trace. As the shoreline was filled in, a few intrepid
citizens also nearly disappeared as well after stepping
into deep mud used to extend the shoreline by almost
220,000 square meters (53 acres).
In August 1883, the new Quai bridge, 121 meters (397
feet) long, was opened to pedestrians. By December 1884
it was ready for carriages. By July 1887, the promenades
along the lake had been planted with fully grown trees
arranged in a naturalistic English style. Two gigantic
plaster lions by sculptor Urs Eggenschwyler (the Lion King)
made a brief appearance on what became Bürkliplatz.
But their imposing size left Zurich looking small by
comparison. They were removed.
Elegance - and insurance
The new lakefront also attracted the attention of growing
companies. In 1898, when Zurich’s board was looking
for a permanent place to establish its corporate headquarters,
it bought the site where Quai Zurich Campus stands
today. It was in good company, with elegant apartments –
the Red Palace and the White Palace – nearby. Zurich’s
own palace was flanked to the north by Swiss Life
insurance company, and a few years after its building was
completed, to the south by Swiss Reinsurance.
Of course, people being what they are, every so often,
someone comes along with a new plan for the lakefront,
such as the City in the Lake that would have filled in
Zurich’s basin and put up skyscrapers. That plan was never
realized. Even more bizarre, another proposal called for
building a gigantic bridge dubbed the beaver dam between
Tiefenbrunnen and Wollishofen, which also, thankfully,
never materialized.
A word of advice for anyone planning to improve
Zurich’s lakefront. Before proceeding, take a moment to
stand on the Quai bridge. Gaze at the view. Ask yourself
in all honesty: could anyone really improve on Bürkli’s
masterpiece?
As city engineer,
Arnold Bürkli (1833–1894)
re-shaped Zurich City
to people’s benefit.
His achievements include
the imposing Quai Bridge
connecting Bellevue
and Enge, and the park
bordering Lake Zurich
that today still offers
a welcome respite from
hectic urban life.Photo: ETH-Bibliothek Zürich
Occupational hazards
The three figures atop Quai Zurich Campus’s
oldest building were meant as a beacon of hope.
A goddess representing the protective powers of insurance.Photo: Stephan Birrer
Contemporaries described the oldest building
on Quai Zurich Campus completed in 1900 as
an ‘insurance palace.’ But private insurance also
represented a beacon of hope to ordinary workers,
and very likely the sculptor, Gustav Siber, had this in
mind when he created the monumental composition
that crowns Zurich’s headquarters by Lake Zurich.
It’s an allegory of the blessings bestowed by workers’
compensation. The gigantic group is dominated by
a goddess wearing a Greek helmet, representing the
protective powers of insurance. Such allegorical figures
were a fairly common advertising motif around the
turn of the last century.
If you can get a good view, you will see that Siber’s
insurance goddess holds one arm aloft, perhaps
summoning help, while at her feet lies an injured
worker. Kneeling at her side, simply dressed, is the
wife or daughter of the injured man, who raises her
arms in supplication. She is not to be disappointed.
For the goddess holds a horn of plenty, indicating
wealth to be bestowed, or at least a livable survivor’s
annuity. The composition sends a strong message that
would have resonated at a time when industrialization
had exposed workers to new risks. Debates were raging
about how best to protect individuals, and stabilize society,
when loss of the main wage earner put entire families at risk.
A life’s work vanishes in Lake Zurich
In 1871, Germany introduced a law that encouraged
employers to carry workers’ compensation insurance,
and, in 1886, it nationalized this cover. Already by 1881,
Switzerland required employers to compensate injured
workers. France followed suit in 1898. In both countries
employers bought cover from private insurers like Zurich.
In fact, French workers’ compensation comprised
the largest single portion of Zurich’s premium income
in 1900, the year Siber completed his monumental work.
Yet there were discussions at home of adopting a public
scheme like Germany’s. In 1900, the Swiss held a
referendum on introducing state accident insurance for
industrial workers. It failed. But the idea didn’t go
away. Zurich entered the political arena, championing
a referendum to keep workers’ compensation insurance
private. Voters decided otherwise.
In 1912, Switzerland approved a National Accident
Insurance Fund (Suva). Meanwhile, the sculptor Gustav
Siber faced a personal crisis. By 1913, as a widower
supporting three children, demand for his style of emotional
realism had dropped off. According to an account by
his granddaughter Elizabeth Siber, one day he sank all
statues and models he possessed in Lake Zurich. Was
it disappointment or a psychological moment that drove
him to despair? Artists, too, it seems, can suffer from the
occupational hazards of their work.
What lies beneath
Under Quai Zurich Campus, archeologists found tantalizing evidence of an ancient culture,
one that can only be imagined. But were those people really so different from us?
Digging up the past: excavation site along Zurich’s lakeshore.Photo: ETH-Bibliothek Zürich
Walking around Quai Zurich Campus today you
might see people dressed in leather, with tattoos,
chewing gum. Imagine standing in the same spot almost
5,000 years ago. What might you have seen? Possibly also
tattooed people dressed in leather, or at least animal hides,
walking around, chewing gum. In some ways, the lake
dwellers of Switzerland might have been a lot like us. A
piece of prehistoric chewing gum very likely made from birch
tree pitch, with human teeth imprints still visible, was just
one of many well-preserved artifacts found during the Quai
Zurich Campus site excavations.
The gum could have been used as a form of dental
hygiene, or as an adhesive. Based on what was uncovered
in the damp sediments under the site, we may almost feel
like we know these people. Excavations indicate that,
just like us today, food was an extremely important part
of their lives. It was possible to reconstruct their diet in
part from traces left on the remnants of cooking pots.
Some had copper for decoration or tools
Skeletal evidence at some other sites showed typical
wear from grinding grain in mortars using heavy pestles,
a task that women performed. The lake dwellers kept
domestic animals including dogs that might have watched
over property, and sometimes wound up in the stewpot.
When cereal crops were poor, the clans likely hunted
more meat.
They were also skilled artisans. Some people had
copper for decoration or tools. The lake dwellers knew
how to weave linen, based on looms found in excavations.
Then, as now, humans must have handed down skills
from one generation to the next. The greatest number
of artifacts dated from 4,700 years ago – left by the
so-called Corded Ware people.
Mythenquai met Opera parking garage
Although there has long been an ongoing debate about
exactly what their homes looked like, archeologists
including Christian Harb from the Archaeology Department
of Canton Zurich, who led the excavation at Zurich’s
site, are confident that many did live in dwellings on top
of pilings, or docks over water, perhaps as a kind of
insurance against floods and attack. About 200 people
could have lived in a settlement of dwellings, each perhaps
30 by 60 meters, topped by shingled roofs. The Mythenquai
dwellers were very likely in contact with others including
those living in a settlement across the lake, where the Zurich
Opera parking garage is located today.
What more might we learn about these people and
their lives? Where did they go? Or perhaps they still live
among us. Their ancestors could be standing before you
now, dressed in leather, chewing gum and admiring each
other’s tattoos.
Prehistoric chewing gum unearthed from the Quai Zurich Campus dig.Photo: Kantonsarchäologie Zürich / Martin Bachmann
Bronze-age commune? Reimagining the lives of lake dwellers.Photo: Baugeschichtliches Archiv der Stadt Zürich
Photo: Florian Kalotay
Afterword
A building not only defines space. A building also defines its surroundings, with
which it maintains a constant dialog. Quai Zurich Campus is closely tied to the city
and its people: it is part of the fabric of Zurich. It is also part of the environment
in which we live, with all its risks and opportunities. Standing on the shores of
Lake Zurich, the Campus is at the junction between people and nature. That’s
exactly where insurance finds its key role – protecting people every day from risk.
Reading the stories in this book, you can gain insights into the broad spectrum of
people and ideas that have made our Zurich Insurance Group what it is today –
a symbol of hope and progress in our global industry. We have always sought to
understand the fears and concerns people have, and to develop solutions to many
of life’s external challenges. As citizens of the city – and of the world – we are
proud to be moving toward an exciting future for both Zurich the city, and Zurich
the company. Thank you for remaining loyal to us, and thank you for joining us.
Publisher
Zurich Insurance Group
Alessio Vinci, Group Chief Communications Officer
Anja Heinsdorf, Project Lead
Concept and execution
Panda & Pinguin GmbH
Andrea Bleicher
Ruth Brüderlin
Sabina Sturzenegger
Design and art direction
Studio Sturzenegger GmbH
Jürg Sturzenegger
Texts
Alice Ratcliffe
Project management
Tatjana Buser
Consulting
Bernhard Weissberg
We are immensely grateful to the following for their constructive support
Thomas Grossenbacher | Ursula Bühlmann | Anja-Lea Fischer | Yves K. Leuenberger | Roman G. Schönauer | Christofer Stadlin
And all the colleagues at Zurich and others who contributed their ideas and insights.
