Chancery © DFAE

Built back in the early 60's, the Chancery did not fulfill the requirements of a modern public service building anymore. Not only became the building too small in size, but the security lacked everywhere. Furthermore, staying for so many years in such a hot and humid climate with almost no maintenance or modernization done whatsoever, the building started to become somewhat shabby and did not represent Switzerland as a modern country adequately anymore.

Well, those days are definitely over: After many months of hard negociations with different Swiss Government agencies involved, the renovation of the Chancery building finally started on Monday, 5th of May 2008. The renovation not only includes a general overhaul of the entire building but also extensions on two sides. In addition it will get a State of the art steel roof. This is reason enough to share this renovation project with you. Therefore in the next couple of months, we will be following the different stages of this renovation project together while presenting some photos until the renovation project will be completed and the new Chancery building will be reopened to the public.

No, it’s not what it looks like! It was neither a natural catastrophe nor a looting mob that stripped off the building. In the very first stage, the structure needs to get prepared before the real renovation can start and therefore needs to be entirely empty. The roof is also being taken down.

To be continued …

After having demolished major parts of the old structure, the actual construction work could finally start. Firstly, an intense excavation had to be conducted in order to prepare the ground to build the new foundation. Therefore, heavy duty machinery such as a digger came into operation.

As it shows on the photos, the new foundation for the office building, the parking area for the staff as well as the new guardhouse is already completed. In addition, a new boundary wall towards Jalan Persiaran Madge has been erected. At the moment, the guardhouse is being dismantled. Meanwhile, a temporary hut was built in order to bridge the gap until the new facility will be ready for use.

As a milestone event - the structural steel work such as purlins and the roof beam as well as the beginning of the roof construction - is just around the corner.

Even though we are still far away from the final stage, first signs of the new structure’s shape can already be noticed!

To be continued …

After over 3 years of preparation and construction the main part of the renovation of the Chancery building was terminated in March 2009 enabling the staff to resume work in the new offices the same month.