1.5 Million Bisazza Mosaic Tiles Decorate The New Swatch Headquarters
The new Swatch headquarters complex in Biel, Switzerland, covers an area of 25,000 square metres. One of the largest wooden structures in the world, it is more than 240 metres long, 35 metres wide and 27 metres high.
The complex is the work of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban, whose innovative use of construction materials, rounded shapes, and large windows conveys a feeling of lightness, transparency and brightness to all spaces, which blend harmoniously into the surrounding environment.
At the centre of the the Cité du Temps, which houses the OMEGA Museum and Planet Swatch, an impressive elliptical dome of 700 square metres lies at the fulcrum of the structural frame. It is this central feature that Ban decided to cover with 1.5 million shimmering Bisazza mosaic tesserae, arranged in a customised shading blend created exclusively for this project.
