Embassy of Switzerland (Bonn)

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Former office building of the Swiss embassy (2008)

The Swiss embassy in the Federal Republic of Germany was based in the Bad Godesberg district of Bonn from 1977 to 1999 . The former office building of the embassy , built in 1976/77, is located in the north-west of the Plittersdorf district on Gotenstrasse (house number 156) near federal road 9 .

history

Villa Bayenthalgürtel 15 in Cologne-Marienburg, seat of the embassy office until 1977 (2008)

Switzerland was one of the eleven states that had been accredited with a diplomatic mission for the Federal Republic of Germany to the Allied High Commission at the seat of government in Bonn since December 15, 1949 . The law firm of the mission initially was in the until then by the Swiss Consulate General in use Villa Goethestraße 66 in Cologne district of Marienburg (after residence), then (from 1952 at the latest) in the Villa Bayenthalgürtel 15 (also Marienburg). From 1951 the mission had the status of a legation , from 1957 that of an embassy. In 1967 the consular section of the embassy was abolished.

When the Swiss Federal Council began to prepare for a longer presence at the Bonn seat of government, from 1963 it planned to build the embassy in the Bad Godesberg district of Bonn, the main focus of the diplomatic missions. In 1964, Switzerland acquired almost 9,000 m² of land there near the Rhine , on which both the embassy chancellery and the residence were initially planned. The implementation of the project was postponed for financial reasons. Due to the further urban development, the Federal Council finally decided to look for alternative locations in Bad Godesberg - now with a spatial separation of the office and residence. At the end of 1970, Switzerland therefore sold the previous property and acquired a plot of around 6,900 m² in the Schweinheim district (Axenfeldstrasse) for the construction of the new residence and at the beginning of 1971 a property in the Plittersdorf district (Gotenstrasse) for the construction of the new law firm. While the construction of the new residence was postponed for financial reasons (the property was sold again in autumn 1997), concrete plans began in 1974 for the new building of the embassy office, the cost of which was estimated at 7.3 million D-Marks . It was created in 1976 and 1977 based on a design by the Zurich architect Jacques Schader . The Federal Building Department in Bern acted as the client . The construction execution was in the hands of the Bonn architectural firms harrow + Legge .

In the summer of 1999 the Swiss embassy moved with the relocation of the seat of government to Berlin (→ Swiss embassy in Berlin ). The former embassy buildings could already be sold by Switzerland by August 1999. The former office building of the embassy is now the location of Vivento and T-Venture , both subsidiaries of Deutsche Telekom .

Consular service center

In 1996, a "Consular Service Center (DLZ)" was founded in Bonn as a branch office of the embassy with around 30 employees and located in rented office space in the Friesdorf district (Peter-Hensen-Straße 1-3). The DLZ was a pilot project and instead of the previous seven offices, including the Berlin branch office of the embassy, ​​performed all of Switzerland's consular tasks in Germany. In this way personnel and cost savings should be achieved. For the time after the embassy moved to Berlin, it was planned to move the facility into the former office building of the embassy. However, the DLZ remained at its previous location and was closed around 2005.

building

The construction was carried out by Jacques Schader using exposed concrete . With its simple but high-quality appearance, it is considered to be one of the particularly successful new embassy buildings in Bonn and “a piece of post-war modern Switzerland in Bonn”. The main structure of the reinforced concrete wing comprises three floors. The ground floor contained a reception, lobby and an event hall, while the upper floors offered representative and office space.

"The architect placed less emphasis on representative effects, but more on the formulation of a successful architecture, which is in the tradition of the exemplary Swiss concrete construction for decades."

- Andreas Denk (1997)

See also

literature

  • Angelika Schyma : With diplomatic restraint: Embassy architecture of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn from the founding of the state to the fall of the wall . In: Embassies in Berlin . Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-7861-2472-8 , pp. 29–41 (here: p. 38).
  • Elke Janßen-Schnabel: The Swiss Embassy in Bonn-Bad Godesberg . In: Preservation of monuments in the Rhineland , ISSN  0177-2619 , Volume 19, No. 4/2002, pp. 176-180.
  • Andreas Denk , Ingeborg flag : Architectural guide Bonn . Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-496-01150-5 , p. 113.
  • Ingeborg flag: Architecture in Bonn after 1945: Buildings in the federal capital and its surroundings . Verlag Ludwig Röhrscheid, Bonn 1984, ISBN 3-7928-0479-4 , p. 61.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Helmut Vogt : Foreign missions in Bonn . In: Guardians of the Bonn Republic: The Allied High Commissioners 1949–1955 , Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2004, ISBN 3-506-70139-8 , pp. 156–160.
  2. ↑ a b c Message from the Federal Council to the Federal Assembly on the construction of embassy buildings in Bonn-Bad Godesberg of September 4, 1974
  3. ↑ Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland 1945-1969 ( Memento from April 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ^ Embassy premises in Berlin rounded off by land purchase , Basler Zeitung , January 28, 1998
  5. ↑ German Chancellery has started work in Berlin , sda - Switzerland, Depeschenagentur, 23 August 1999
  6. ^ Paul Widmer: The Swiss Legation in Berlin: History of a Difficult Diplomatic Post , ISBN 978-3858237286 , Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 1998, p. 388.
  7. ↑ Bonn Council Information System - Statement by the Administration (PDF), September 2006
  8. ↑ Angelika Schyma: In diplomatic restraint. Embassy architecture of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn from the founding of the state to the fall of the wall .
  9. ^ Andreas Denk, Ingeborg Flagge: Architekturführer Bonn .

Coordinates: 50 ° 41 ′ 48.6 ″  N , 7 ° 8 ′ 41.7 ″  E