IttenBrechbühl

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Itten + Brechbühl AG
legal form Corporation
founding 1922
Seat Bern , Switzerland
Number of employees > 300 (December 31, 2018)
Branch architecture office
Website www.ittenbrechbuehl.ch

IttenBrechbühl is an architecture office and general planning company founded in 1922 by Otto Rudolf Salvisberg and Otto Brechbühl in Berlin. Today the company is represented as a Swiss stock corporation with around 300 employees at locations in Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, Lugano, St. Gallen, Zurich and as Itten + Brechbühl GmbH Germany in Berlin, Bochum and Greifswald.

history

Salvisberg and Brechbühl, 1922–1940

Otto Rudolf Salvisberg graduated from the technical center in Burgdorf in 1904 and worked for Curjel and Moser in Karlsruhe. In 1908 he moved to Berlin to join Paul Zimmerreimers. In 1910 he brought Otto Brechbühl (1889–1984), who had just graduated from the Technikum Biel, into the office. During the day the two worked for carpenters, at night they worked on competitions for themselves. They had their first success with a project for the garden city Frohnau in Berlin.

Salvisberg started his own business in 1914 and Brechbühl was the head of the construction office in the Reich Office of the Interior during the First World War. Salvisberg built around 40 villas in Berlin, as well as settlements such as Onkel Toms Hütte (in collaboration with Bruno Taut and Hugo Häring ) and on the Schillerpromenade . From 1918 both worked together again. Otto Brechbühl returned to Switzerland in 1922 and headed the joint office in Bern . That was the start of the IttenBrechbühl architecture office.

The breakthrough came with the competition for the Lory Hospital in 1924/25, which was followed by the nursing home in Elfenau . The third first prize went to Salvisberg and Brechbühl with the institute buildings of the University of Bern . With the Lory-Spital, Salvisberg and Brechbühl developed a type of floor plan that should embody medical progress: the sickroom facing south with a continuous balcony and glazed corner reclining halls. In 1930 Salvisberg succeeded Karl Moser as an architecture professor at the ETH in Zurich. From 1934 onwards several projects for the pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche followed. First in Basel , later also in Welwyn (GB) and Milan . Otto Rudolf Salvisberg died in December 1940. Roland Rohn took over his Zurich office.

Otto Brechbühl, 1940–1955

After Salvisberg's death, Otto Brechbühl took over the Bern office, which had five to six employees at the end of the 1940s, under his own name. At the beginning, during the Second World War, there was little to build and construction activity was severely restricted. After the war, large hospital buildings such as the Anna-Seiler-Haus and the dental institute of the University of Bern followed. At the age of 67, Otto Brechbühl thought of quitting. In 1955, the canton of Bern commissioned him to redesign the Inselspital . To ensure continuity, he brought reinforcements from Zurich. There was Rudolf Steiger led the planning of the Cantonal Hospital and was awarded the honorary doctorate of the University.

Brechbühl and Itten, 1956–1968

Jakob Itten (1930–1988) was the son of the architect Arnold Itten. He first studied physics, later switched to architecture. After studying at ETH Zurich, Jakob Itten worked for Jean Prouvé in Paris, among others . Itten's sponsors included Rudolf Steiger, the architect of the Zurich Cantonal Hospital. Together with Arnold Itten, Steiger built the “ Bella Lui ” sanatorium in Montana.

Jakob Itten wanted to go to Canada, the visa had already been granted. There he met Otto Brechbühl in the Schweizerhoflaube in Bern, with whom he had done an internship as a student. Brechbühl suggested to Itten to enter his office. Jakob Itten became Brechbühl's employee and from 1963 a business partner. Itten replaced the originally planned successor, who did not meet Brechbühl's requirements when building the Aarberg Hospital. The Spiegel school near Bern was Brechbühl's last major work.

Itten + Brechbühl, 1968–1973

After the completion of the treatment wing east of the Inselspital in 1964, the architectural office was renamed Itten + Brechbühl in 1967. Otto Brechbühl retired from day-to-day business at the age of 79. In 1973 the stock corporation Itten + Brechbühl AG was founded, 70 percent of the shares belonged to Jakob Itten, the remaining 30 percent to Otto Brechbühl. Karl Gerber, Sven Nägeli, Franz Oswald and Günther Wieser were partners, the extended management included eleven people. There was a design and several execution departments. Itten + Brechbühl were the leading hospital planners in Switzerland. Jakob Itten developed the round hospital, which saved the staff half of the journeys. The most demanding job was the general planning of the Aarau and Baden hospitals, which was carried out in a consortium with Motor Columbus . In 1973 Itten + Brechbühl had 217 employees at up to 13 locations, a year later 260. All work was done in-house, including HVAC planning, structural engineering, medical technology and operational planning. For cost control, Itten + Brechbühl acquired the largest computer system in Switzerland at that time in an architecture office. Jakob Itten relied on forward strategy. With the advice of Lattmann, a professor of business administration from St. Gallen, he introduced internal management training, published an in-house newspaper, set performance and quality goals and expanded the architecture office into a planning company.

I + B and Motor Columbus, 1973–1991

Itten + Brechbühl ran into liquidity problems through various development aid projects, such as in Iraq or in Nouakchott , the capital of Mauritania . In September 1975, the banks forced Jakob Itten to hand it over to a stronger partner. Motor Columbus , who wanted to expand their general contractor area, then took over the planning company. The staff was reduced from 260 to 110 employees and only three of the total of 13 hospitals in Iraq that had been planned from 1974 to 1975 were executed. The company's own office building on Sulgeneckstrasse in Bern was sold, as was the high-rise in Kappelenfeld near Bern. At that time, the Albabtain office building was being built in Riyadh, which Hans Eggen built there independently while concluding contracts, collecting money and selling power plants as branch manager of Motor Columbus. Jakob Itten continued to work in "his" company, mainly because a two-year non-competition clause forced him to do so. He then went into business again in 1978 and was in direct competition with Itten + Brechbühl AG in the field of hospital construction in the canton of Bern. Jakob Itten died in 1988.

I + B and Peter Staub, 1991–1994

Peter Staub (born 1933) joined Itten + Brechbühl AG as managing director at the end of 1979. He had studied architecture at the ETH in Zurich , had been an assistant at Hoesli, had worked for Gisel und Schader, ran his own office and was involved in major projects on behalf of various companies abroad. He started with long-term strategic planning. She oriented herself to the change in society and reflected on her own strengths. With young architects it was possible to win twelve first prizes in around 50 competitions, seven of which were carried out. These include the Technopark and the treatment wing of the University Hospital in Zurich , the school for nursing professions in Interlaken and the pathology department in Bern. The most demanding task of the 1980s was the complete renovation of the operating wing of the University Hospital Zurich. The basis of this contract was the "Eggen Plan", a roadmap for the future of the entire university hospital, which had been developed as early as 1973. This concept study made it possible to open a branch in Zurich in 1974. At the beginning of 1990, Motor Columbus wanted to withdraw from its involvement with Itten + Brechbühl, and at the age of 58 Peter Staub took over the company together with Hans Eggen, then 51, in a management buyout. From the beginning, both endeavored to bring about a generation change and a succession plan.

IttenBrechbühl and Nick Gartenmann

Just four years later, Peter Staub handed over his shares to Gartenmann & Partner AG. After completing his studies at ETH Zurich, Nick Gartenmann founded the architecture firm GWJ together with Marc Werren and Andreas Jöhri. Even before the handover by Peter Staub, various project-specific collaborations took place between GWJ Architects and IttenBrechbühl. Right at the beginning of the new era, the office won two competitions: the forestry school in Lyss and the Suva clinic in Sion. In addition to the close cooperation with GWJ, we also worked with various international architectural offices. For example, together with Nicholas Grimshaw, the competition for the fifth expansion phase of Zurich Airport was won. In a joint venture with Baumschlager Eberle , IttenBrechbühl planned and built the clinic in Kortrijk and the airport expansion in Vienna .

Under the leadership of Hans Eggen, the office continued to plan and build many hospitals, old people's homes and clinics. After the buildings constructed in the 1920s, 1930s and 1970s, IttenBrechbühl was able to win the competition for the new INO treatment center at Inselspital . Stefan Kuhn joined the company in 1997 as a further partner and strengthened the management of a major Swiss bank with his many years of client and investor experience. A year later, an employee participation model is introduced with the architects Peter Lobsiger, Hans Reber and Erich Simon as associated partners. A partnership with SchemelWirz was established in Luxembourg. Overall urban planning concepts and various buildings were realized together. The Gartenmann & Partner Holding brought together various companies that, in addition to architecture, also covered the fields of operational planning and management . Under the direction of Nick Gartenmann, the office grew again from 45 to more than 200 employees. New offices were also established in Basel and Lausanne.

IttenBrechbühl today

Nick Gartenmann retired from the business in 2012 and handed over the majority of the shareholders to Christoph Arpagaus, Beat Gafner, Andreas Jöhri, Robin Kirschke, Peter Lobsiger and Peter Schneitter. Jürg Toffol, Alain Krattinger and Andrea Molina joined them later. Marion Spirig heads the St. Gallen location, and Annemarie Lippert is the managing director of Itten + Brechbühl GmbH Germany. Today eleven partners as well as around 60 associates and associate partners with up to ten percent of the shares run the architecture company with over 300 employees at locations in Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, Lugano, St. Gallen, Zurich, Berlin, Bochum and Greifswald. Projects and plans that have been completed or are currently ongoing in recent years include the Confédération Center Genève, the master plan for the new Grossfeld district in Luxembourg, the new headquarters of the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, the Vortex student housing near Lausanne, and the new SwissFEL building for the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen or the renovation of the SBB train station in Lucerne.

Works (selection)

  • 1926–1929: Lory Hospital in Bern
  • 1955: Inselspital in Bern
  • 1991–1997: Lyss Intercantonal Forestry School in Bern
  • 1996–1999: SUVA Rehabilitation Clinic in Sion
  • 1996–2004: Zurich Airport , Airside Center, train station terminal and Check-in 3, Zurich
  • 1998–2012: Intensive, Emergency and Operations Center (INO) Inselspital in Bern
  • 2001–2012: Cantonal Hospital Olten (Solothurn Hospitals) Olten, Solothurn
  • 2005: Terminal 1A, Vienna-Schwechat Airport
  • 2005–2012: Skylink Airport in Vienna
  • 2005–2012: Friedrich Loeffler Institute Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, Riems Island near Greifswald, Germany
  • 2006–2008: Media Swiss House Flamatt, Friborg
  • 2007–2014: PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) headquarters, Luxembourg
  • 2007–2016: RTL Group, Luxembourg
  • 2008–2012: Centro Svizzero di Calcolo Scientifico (CSCS) in Lugano, Ticino
  • 2009–2012: University of Lausanne, Quartier Mouline, Vaud
  • 2012–2014: Carba Center 30, Liebefeld-Köniz near Bern
  • 2013–2015: Hotel Modern Times , Vevey-Montreux, Vaud
  • 2014–2016: Espace Musée Chaplin, Corsier-sur-Vevey VD
  • 2014–2017: Wisbyer Strasse in Berlin, Germany

Work show

  • Lory Hospital

  • Zurich Airside Center

  • Swiss National Supercomputing Center

literature

  • Benedikt Loderer, Hans Eggen, Stefan Kuhn: History since 1922. Zurich . In: IttenBrechbühl (Ed.): Portfolio . Bern 2016.
  • Raised ground floor : IttenBrechbühl - an architectural story . Zurich. Second, revised edition. Zurich 2003.
  • Raised ground floor: Itten + Brechbühl - an architectural story. Zurich 1999.
  • Raised ground floor: airport head . Supplement to Hochparterre No. 12. Zurich 2004.
  • Raised ground floor : IttenBrechbühl today. Special issue from Hochparterre. Zurich 2013.
  • Mezzanine floor: Fin de Chantier. The ark securely anchored , In: Hochparterre (Hrsg.): Journal for Architecture and Design 5, pp. 70–71. Zurich 2010.
  • Mezzanine floor: the informed model. Special issue from Hochparterre, June 2015.
  • Carba Center 30. Waldeggstrasse 30, Liebefeld. Swiss construction documentation, accessed on May 9, 2016.
  • SBB operations center in Olten. Swiss construction documentation, accessed on May 9, 2016.
  • La Gare Cornavin. Swiss construction documentation, accessed on May 9, 2016.
  • Sigfried Schibli: The miller's son from Köniz. Who was the architect Otto Rudolf Salvisberg who gave the Roche site in Basel a face? In: Basler Zeitung, p. 23, Basel October 24, 2014.
  • Zentrum Paul Klee / Children's Museum Creaviva: Promenade Architecturale , Bern 2014.

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ http://ittenbrechbuehl.ch/team >
  2. ^ The work - Archithesis . Issue 10/1977