Canton Bank of Zug

Lasa marble provides a representative ambience in a traditional Swiss bank building

For the construction of the new headquarters of the Zug Cantonal Bank between 1955 and 1958, a façade with large-format wall panels made of Lasa marble of the LASA BIANCO NUVOLATO FORTE^® grade was chosen for the cladding of the bank building. In its elegance, the extremely high-quality 1950s building sets a radically modern accent on the historic townscape at Zug Postplatz and found new forms for a bank's need for representation.

The inner spatial structure and the design of the outer façade create a clear structural design for the whole building. Thus, on each front of the building there is a three-storey, glass/metal façade field of different widths, which is framed as a whole and emerges impressively from the façade surface clad in Lasa marble slabs. At the time, this façade construction was one of the first of its kind in Switzerland. Especially in the relief, it emphasizes the interplay between closed and open façade surfaces. The façade design on Bahnhofstrasse is inviting, where the spatial connection between street, arcade, vestibule and counter hall and via the curved staircase to the upper floors is differentiated and creates spatial transparency. Lasa marble was also used here. The massive staircase, designed in 1957, is made from LASA VENATO VENA VERDE^® The floors in the counter hall and on the upper floor were covered with LASA BIANCO NUVOLATO FORTE^® Lasa marble, and in addition to other fine, carefully detailed materials such as green serpentine and stained elm wood on the walls, emphasize the representative character of the publicly accessible customer area.

In view of the bank's 125th anniversary in 2017, a general refurbishment and conversion of the cubic-shaped building was carried out during the period of 2010-2016 under the direction of the Zug architects' office Wiederkehr Krummenacher Architekten. Lasa Marmo manufactured and supplied further large-format floor slabs of the LASA BIANCO NUVOLATO^® type.

Special feature: On the outer façade there is an impressive stone sculpture made of Lasa marble by the Schwyz sculptor Josef Rickenbacher (1925-2004). Rickenbacher chose a theme that can easily be associated with banking: Harvesting and collecting. The relief depicts a female person harvesting fruit from a tree with her right hand and collecting it in a bowl with her left.