Novartis Laboratories, Fabrikstrasse 28 (WSJ-352)

The Novartis campus in Basel brings together buildings by a long list of leading architects, including Tadao Ando, David Chipperfield, Frank Gehry, SANAA and Álvaro Siza. Ando's, placed at the end of the main axis, closes the campus to the north. It is the subject of the twelfth volume in the series of publications devoted to the campus, published in 2011.

At the north of the campus, the building flanks the square that ends Fabrikstrasse, where Dirk's Pod, a monumental sculpture by Richard Serra, stands. It rises three storeys higher than the height allowed elsewhere on the campus, and opens onto the square behind an arcade that shelters the main entrance.

Its plot is a right triangle whose hypotenuse almost coincides with the border with France, while the other two sides face the square and the street named after Lister. A large lobby distributes the levels above and below ground. Vertical circulation is gathered in an opaque block parallel to the longest facade, which frees broad, open and flexible office and laboratory floors above. At the sharpest end of the plan, small and very tall rest areas serve the researchers; on the roof lies a terrace planted with flowers.

The structure is exposed reinforced concrete, with interior walls of the texture characteristic of Ando. The facade is a curtain wall with stainless-steel and aluminium frames and triple insulating glazing, backed by motorised aluminium blinds that control direct light. The floors are stone in the lobby and wood in the rest areas.

The building was put up for Novartis's institute for biomedical research; it brings together laboratories, offices and research units.

The building houses laboratories: it is seen from outside, from the square at the end of Fabrikstrasse. The campus is open to the public Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and closed on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.