9 – 2016

Basel

Is the Roche Tower good for Basel, or has it disfigured the small town setting? While people in the city on the Rhine knee are getting used to the new presence, we in the editorial office of werk ask ourselves whether it is admissible to pass judgment: let us start by saying we have shirked from doing so. For the Tower of Basel cannot be assessed according to the usual criteria — Switzerland’s tallest building is the symbol of a previously unknown force, which, almost like a natural phenomenon, is reshaping the image of city. The series of pictures by Bern photographer Thomas Aemmer captures this brilliantly. The scale of the tower is a global one; its impact extends as far as Alsace, to Colmar, where the top of the building sparkles between the clouds. Itself a proud town, like Basel Colmar belongs to the cultural area of the Upper Rhine Plain. Alsace offers the reservoir of labour, living space and various enjoyments that supplies the big city and meets the needs of the economy of a global player. For more than 50 years people have been talking about the Regio Basilensis, the metabolism of this urban region ensures economic success, quality of life, contentment. Like with all organisms, preserving the homoeostasis requires an effort. People in Zurich and Bern are amazed to learn that for thirty years Basel been earmarking a tax on the increase in land value that results from zoning changes and channelling it into the improvement of its urban districts. Or to discover that the alternative business known as Unternehmen Mitte is funded by one of richest personalities in Basel — who, nota bene, also lives in the city. Or we are amazed by the fact that the building cooperative Wohnstadt Basel cultivates close collaboration with partners in Germany. Basel, like almost no other city, stands for the combination of the global and the local, of civic pride and the allotment garden. “Quality” must be a Basel word. It describes precisely the way in which collaboration is achieved through occasionally almost secretive consensus, and it applies to many building projects in the city. Quality has characterised architecture in Basel for a long time now and, it should not be forgotten, provides the basis for the international reputation of Swiss creative work. And if the Roche Tower, the symbol of a global presence, becomes an everyday companion, one is also justified in speaking about quality.