Offices and institutions in Switzerland: who commissions art, and what the walls need

The banks, insurers, public builders and larger clinics commission through curators and competitions; the rest of the office market publishes no programme at all ^3337424546.

Banks. UBS reported over 30,000 works displayed in more than 700 offices worldwide as of 2018, and its current pages say works from the 1960s to today hang in UBS offices globally and in the UBS Art Gallery in New York ³³³⁵. The 2023 takeover of Credit Suisse brought more than 13,500 further works — mostly Swiss artists such as Ferdinand Hodler and Félix Vallotton, plus decorative posters — of which a selection stays in Swiss offices while much will not be shown publicly, per an art-advisory blog of March 2025 ³⁶. Julius Baer's collection, founded in 1981, holds over 5,000 works by contemporary Swiss and Switzerland-based artists and hangs in the bank's meeting rooms, staff restaurants, offices, foyers and corridors worldwide, because, in the bank's words, art at the workplace 'fördert die Gesprächskultur' ³⁷. In 2010 the bank was buying 30–40 works a year with a CHF 20,000 cap per work, and Zürcher Kantonalbank bought only artists born, trained, living or working in the Zürich region ⁶⁷. Swiss Re describes roughly 3,400–3,600 works with site-specific 'Kunst am Bau' commissions in Zürich, London and New York ⁴⁰.

Public builders. The City of Zürich has reserved 0.35–1.5% of construction costs for Kunst und Bau since 1962, runs six to ten competitions a year and holds over 1,000 site-specific works — commissions, not purchases of movable paintings ⁴². The federal Kunst am Bau programme uses invited competitions judged on public impact, political significance and representativeness, with no fixed percentage; a competition for the Swiss National Library is planned for 2026 ⁴⁴.

Clinics and hospitals. Klinik Hirslanden Zürich holds 'gut 1'300' works of contemporary Swiss art under curator Verena Schmid, chosen for an atmosphere 'die Empfindungen weckt' for patients ⁴⁵. Kantonsspital Graubünden has run a professional art programme since 2018 on a modest annual budget, engaging professional artists only, through competitions for major projects ⁴⁶. The new Kinderspital Zürich commissioned competition-selected works including a 380 × 580 cm bell curtain and a 65.66 × 2.55 m mural, funded by donations, with no CHF budget disclosed ⁴⁷.

Professional firms. No law or consulting firm publishes an art programme in the sources; what exists is a service layer. Steinfels Art Consulting (Zürich, founded 2012) lists financial firms, law firms and corporate collections as clients, König Büro has sold 'Hängekonzepte' to businesses since 2013, and Artrent rents originals at roughly 20% of the purchase price a year, credited against a later purchase ^4951197. EDELSTOCK in Zwillikon hand-paints XXL canvases to a client's size, colour and texture for hotels, offices and spas, but publishes no sizes or prices ¹⁹⁹. The inference is that the top tier buys curated contemporary Swiss art and is not a market for imported decorative originals, while firms without a programme have no domestic supplier of large made-to-size canvases with published terms beyond these few ^4267142.

Swiss institutions hang their largest work at reception, one work per meeting room, series along corridors and calmer imagery where people wait; the ceiling — 2.40 m minimum, 3 m or more in pre-1940 and prime buildings — sets the height ³⁷⁶⁶⁹⁴.

Lobby and reception. UBS was hanging its collection in teller halls, meeting rooms and offices by 2005, and the two best-documented Swiss reception walls carry one large work each: a Bosco Sodi diptych behind the desk at The Alpina Gstaad and, by press accounts, Warhol's 11-metre 'Big Retrospective Painting' behind the Dolder Grand's front desk ^6687108. At the Kinderspital Zürich the quiet room hangs a 380 × 580 cm curtain ⁴⁷. For a reception wall of 6–8 m this suggests one panoramic canvas of 250–350 × 100–120 cm, or a tall vertical pair, rather than several small pieces — an inference from those examples, not a Swiss standard ⁸⁷⁴⁷.

Boardroom. Julius Baer places works in 'Sitzungsräume' and UBS in 'Sitzungszimmern' ³⁷⁶⁶. The Swiss minimum clear room height is 2.40 m, new builds run 2.50–2.60 m and pre-1940 buildings 3.00–3.50 m, so a converted Altbau floor in Zürich, Basel or Geneva takes a 150–200 cm vertical without crowding, while a new build calls for a horizontal of about 160–240 cm wide and no more than 100–120 cm high above the credenza (derived from the ceiling data) ⁹⁴.

Corridors and open-plan. Julius Baer lists 'Gänge' among its hanging places, and the Renaissance Zurich Tower's 2025 renovation put 20 large-format graphics by one Zürich artist in the corridors of every floor ³⁷¹⁸⁸. The Kinderspital's 65.66 m mural shows the institutional reference length ⁴⁷.

Executive floors. In 2001 NZZ reported that Julius Baer staff in seven branches could choose works from the then 2,000-piece holding for their own workplace, so that 95% of the collection hung in offices — a practice that may have changed ³⁸.

Waiting areas. Kantonsspital Graubünden's art-commission chair cites a WHO synthesis of over 3,000 studies linking a pleasant environment to shorter stays and less pain medication, and holds that landscape works reduce stress — one curator's view ⁴⁶.

Written order confirmation, a 30–50% deposit, net-30 balance, a spec sheet per position, a certificate, progress photos and delivery staged to the fit-out — the structure Swiss interior firms already use for custom goods ³¹³².

DAVINCI Interior Design (Lucerne) demands 30–50% prepayment, treats a contract as concluded only on written confirmation, invoices net 30 days and states custom items 'can under no circumstances be taken back'; 85d innenarchitektur (terms of October 2025) takes a 50% deposit on projects above CHF 20,000 ³¹³². Local commission painters ask for more: one studio quoting Swiss clients in CHF takes 70% upfront and quotes about 21 days for acrylic, 14–30 days for oil, plus 3–5 business days for framing and shipping ¹.

• A spec sheet per position — size in cm, orientation, finish (rolled, stretched or framed), colour family and the wall it is for — so the fit-out contractor can hang from it.
• Certificate and provenance. Swiss consumer press frames low-cost imports with suspicion — Stiftung Warentest found 110 of 162 Temu and Shein items non-compliant with EU standards — so a signed certificate and a named painter carry weight here ²⁵. The large bank collections also asked first about an artist's Swiss link, a norm of their 2005–2010 policies rather than of every office (inference) ⁶⁷.
• Progress photos with stage approval, because a custom piece cannot be returned once painted ³¹.
• Staged delivery and installation. Welti-Furrer in Zürich offers climate-controlled transport, crating, on-site hanging and installation for corporate collections; a Bern conservation framer prices stretcher bars at CHF 12 per running metre plus CHF 90 per hour for stretching, roughly CHF 150 for a 150 × 100 cm rolled canvas ²⁸²⁹.

iHomeArt's verified terms map onto that structure: a quote within 1 business day, about 1 week to paint plus 3–7 days transit (10–13 days door to door), free insured shipping, progress photos or video with stage-by-stage approval, a signed certificate of authenticity, finishes rolled, stretched or framed, minimum order 1 piece and volume pricing from 10. Against the 3–5 weeks plus framing that local studios quote, the difference is lead time; the deposit-and-confirmation logic is the same ¹³².

Contemporary abstraction and matte, textured surfaces in the grey–beige–white register, with landscape kept for patient and waiting areas; a local 2 m original runs CHF 5,000–20,000 ^74461128.

The collections named above buy contemporary work — UBS from the 1960s onward, Julius Baer's Armleder, Rist, Rondinone and Signer — and across the affluent Swiss interiors documented, walls are carried by monochrome and matter painting rather than Alpine views (an inference from six sources, no survey) ³⁵³⁷⁷⁴. A Zürich studio with 370,000 Instagram followers sells single-brushstroke oils at CHF 3,000–6,000 by size (October 2025) ¹¹⁸. Gallery originals at 100–140 cm run CHF 7,400–8,000 at Galerie Reitz in Zürich, commission studios band 120 × 160 cm at CHF 6,500–12,000 and 150 × 200 cm and above at CHF 9,000–20,000, and a Lucerne studio sells a 200 × 200 cm abstract at CHF 5,250 ^1431128. Stocked retail stops at 150 × 118 cm (Pfister, CHF 899) and KUNSTLOFT's 'from' CHF 819–1,079 base sizes with a filter to 200 cm, so a painted, made-to-size original over 1.5 m at CHF 600–3,000 is thinly served (inference) ¹³⁹¹⁴².