The headquarters of the Swiss chocolate company Lindt & Sprüngli was established in 1845 and is located on the edge of Lake Zurich on the outskirts of Switzerland's most prosperous city.
Lindt is sold in more than 120 countries around the world, consists of 28 subsidiaries, and has more than 500 of its own retail stores.
The Lindt Chocolate House campus is funded and operated by the Lindt Chocolate Qualification Foundation, and its headquarters will become the new facade of their factories, warehouses, office buildings and campuses.
The new flagship building needed to have a distinctive contemporary style to balance its eclectic architecture.
This multi-functional experience space is expected to become one of the most visited buildings in Switzerland. It is a user-centered multi-functional project and is about to become a new type of civic building.
The building was designed to raise the profile of the Swiss chocolate industry to new heights, so when it was built it already included the charm that draws visitors to it.
The building houses an interactive immersive chocolate exhibition, a future chocolate recipe research and development center, a production factory, a chocolate shop, a cafe and offices. All spaces are connected to each other by spiral staircases and criss-crossing walkways in the atrium.
In the center of the building is a dramatic nine-meter-high golden chocolate fountain created by exhibition author Atelier Brückner.
The site of the Lindt Chocolate House factory has its own logic, history and urban architecture. It is a typical composite industrial box and echoes the surrounding factories.
With a fa?ade composed mainly of red brick, its design is based on ready-made industrial products that can be artificially grafted into specific architectural elements and echo the neighborhood in an abstract recreation.
The southeast corner of the square box is cut and interrupted, which also makes the building volume no longer simple.
The exterior of the building is clad in white tiles decorated with gold text. This area is located next to the entrance to the Lindt Chocolate House and features a public plaza.
The huge atrium is 64 meters long, 15 meters high and 13 meters wide. It is not only an exaggerated blank, but also a basic existence in the architectural order.
A series of load-bearing columns and walls create a strong structure within, so all activities are organized around these areas.
The columns show the dynamic side of the building.
Stairs, elevators, walkways and connecting bridges create spatial and experiential connectivity and communication. This space is also the core area of ??Lindt Chocolate House, which is in sharp contrast to its almost calm appearance.
What appears to be a simple building at first glance is actually a carefully designed and cleverly calculated multi-level complex.
Its inherent architectural form is durable while also accommodating elastic changes.
Its flexible and strong properties simultaneously allow the building to embrace a variety of potential variations in practical applications.
The structural system of the Lindt Chocolate House is itself a hybrid, simultaneously aesthetic, functional and structural, and together with the load-bearing facades, it allows the interior to become a spacious space without the obstruction of columns.
The Lindt Chocolate House is the second cultural project Christ & Gantenbein has completed in Zurich, in addition to its extension to the Swiss National Museum, and is a complex hybrid with a high technical content.
Architectural showrooms, museums, shopping areas and cutting-edge R&D centers are integrated with its industrial production and in partnership with ETH Zurich to create a new-age spatial experience that integrates thinking, entertainment, research and interaction.