Concrete, asphalt, steel, and smoke, the rattling of trains, the roar of ships’ horns on the Rhine, the acrid smell that lingered all over the site – this is how St. Johann felt until well after the end of the 20th century.

For around 150 years, the district was an important center of industrialization – first in the field of dye chemistry, then later in construction chemistry and pharmaceuticals. Companies such as Gebrueder Bloch & Cie., Durand & Huguenin, and Kern & Sandoz all set up shop here.

The energy required for the heavy production processes came from the combustion of coal and later oil until the 1980s, when a social rethink took place and issues relating to energy and waste disposal were newly addressed.

The Rhine, which until then had to cope with everything thrown into it, was completely cleaned up. This was especially the case after the accident at Schweizerhalle, which showed just how little is needed for a catastrophe of almost biblical proportions.

New work ethos

Today, almost nothing from this era remains. St. Johann has been transformed into a Campus for research and work on the future of medicine.

Smoking chimneys, freight wagons, or air pollution are a thing of the past. While there were less than a dozen trees on the site just 25 years ago, today there are more than 3,000.

As part of the Campus project, which was launched at the turn of the millennium shortly after Novartis was founded in 1996, meadows and parks were created, modern laboratories and office buildings were erected, and art was displayed in the public spaces.

The aim was to create a new work ethic in which people are no longer just cogs in a machine, but once again feel part of the nature they have shaped. This interplay of nature and culture can be felt at every step when moving around the Campus.

7 Steine

This is impressively expressed in the sculptures of Ulrich Rueckriem, who was one of the first artists to be exhibited on Campus around the turn of the millennium. In his work 7 Steine at the Forum, Rueckriem made vertical cuts into raw blocks of stone. The stones are cut flat at the bottom so that they fit exactly on the slabs. They then create an interplay that visually breaks up the regular arrangement of the slabs and brings new life to the square.

Rueckriem’s sculptures are shaped by a roughness that we initially shy away from. They often only expose the natural stone, almost as if the boulders had been standing here since time immemorial. Even when Rueckriem works on the stone, transforms it and thus gives it a purpose, his works radiate an originality that is difficult to put into words.

As a result, nature and culture appear to be addressed at the same time, becoming one inextricably intertwined unit. The stone holds this unit together in a seemingly eternal clasp – nature and culture are one.

Parks, meadows, and art

This also applies to the Campus as a whole. Designed to the highest aesthetic and technological standards, the buildings are in harmony with the various gardens covering some 20 hectares.

These include the Courtyard in Forum 1, which was designed by Peter Walker. He had already assumed overall responsibility for the design of the park and meadows in 1999, even before Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani drew up the master plan for the Campus.

Walker’s goal was to create a landscape where people feel comfortable, but also have the opportunity to take breaks or work together. He also designed the Forum and the avenue along Fabrikstrasse, at whose northern end the mighty steel walls by Richard Serra tower into the sky – one of around 20 works of art seen in the public areas on the Campus.

Care

Today, a team of 16 gardeners led by Oliever Meyer takes care of the green and black areas. The Park South at the main entrance to the Campus is the one that attracts the greatest attention.

Park South features a typical Jura landscape with trees, shrubs, and meadows that extends harmoniously towards the Rhine. Although only a single layer of soil is found above the underground car park, around 1,000 plants grow here. In places, the park feels like a jungle, especially after a summer shower when the air rises to the treetops in moist swaths.

The Physic Garden with its around 80 medicinal plants, which harks back to the early production of natural substances by Sandoz and Ciba-Geigy, is also challenging. “We have to make sure these plants are taken care of according to their individual needs and prevent a fast-growing variety such as peppermint from spreading to other beds,” explains Meyer.

Further north is Park North, which stretches right up to the border with France. Here, the care of the shrubs is particularly labor-intensive as it is important to prevent overgrown areas.

Rahul Mehrotra’s building with its green facade and jungle-like inner courtyard also brings plenty of work, as do the green roofs on many new and old Campus buildings. “These additional areas make up another few hectares that we are responsible for. Including the roads and paths, we look after an area of around 20 hectares on the Campus in total.”

Care and quality

Designed almost three decades ago by Peter Walker and further developed by national and international landscape architects, the green spaces are a natural reflection of the state-of-the-art buildings. Only when they come together do they form the Campus as a unit.

In essence, they express the same thing: the utmost care and quality. The parks are a symbol of the human will to create, which is essentially no different than when it comes to producing innovative gene therapies or nuclear medicines, or working on new RNA therapies.

On Campus, the contrast between nature and culture dissolves and becomes one – just like in the works of Rueckriem. They are symbiotically intertwined, with humans always at the center of attention.

Today, the Campus belongs not only to Novartis employees, but also to the public – who can then form their own impression of St. Johann. The forbidden city is now history.