Corporate Headquarter Neue Zürcher Zeitung

The head offices of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung have been in their central location next to the Zurich opera house for over a hundred years. After production was moved to nearby Schlieren at the turn of the millennium, the ground floor was left largely empty. In 2002, Stücheli Architekten drew up an initial project to reinvigorate the space. The division into NZZ, restaurant and shop areas was taken over in the subsequent project planning and was finalised at the end of 2005. The client's underlying wish was to open up the main building to the general public. As the building was listed, however, all variants with regard to the removal of the parapets and the old windows had to be developed working together with the city's monument preservation office. The reconstruction of the dome facing Sechseläutenplatz recreated the original appearance and increased the usable floor area. The ground floor is now accessible to the public. Alongside the newspaper's own shop, the NZZ Libro, the floor contains meeting rooms that can be combined for larger events. Curved, white plaster walls frame the rooms, with the folded, paper-like surfaces a nod to the building's function. Brass lines embedded in the floor, an enlargement of the historic NZZ lettering, curve through the building's original Art Nouveau style.