Academy

At Herzog & de Meuron, all our team members want to progress, learn, and improve both professionally and personally. We are a unique blend of individuals with broad knowledge and multiple talents. Led by a small group of H&dM employees, the Academy is our internal initiative where these abilities are brought to light and shared.

Within the scope of our project work, we teach, and we learn, day by day. The strength to acknowledge shortcomings and learn from them belongs to our company culture. Striving for progress is essential to our culture as well – we do not become complacent but rather continue to push forward. The Academy offers us the chance to develop individual skills, to acquire and share knowledge, and to benefit from the expertise of others. Experienced colleagues hand down H&dM culture and life experience to younger colleagues, who in turn raise awareness around new directions the world is taking.

As a pillar of our company, the Academy creates internal and external platforms to explore our work, increase our knowledge and facilitate exchange through project insights, internal displays, panel discussions, guided tours, archive visits, and expert papers. These formats aim to strengthen the understanding of both our current and past projects, fostering a deeper connection to the ideas and processes behind them.

To promote learning beyond our office, the Academy provides opportunities for our team members to expand their horizons through courses and workshops led by internal experts and external specialists. Topics range from project management and social skills such as communication and leadership to insights into the latest advancements in design, software, fabrication, and construction. To further support individual career development, we offer our collaborators short-term leave opportunities to pursue studies and support the attendance of conferences, courses or qualification exams.

As an important aspect of the employee journey, we also encourage the pursuit of endeavors outside of Herzog & de Meuron and beyond the realm of architecture and urbanism: to take inspiration from society, through theater, film, music, visual arts, science, and sport, and to become acquainted with Basel or the cities where our studios are located. We do this by drawing attention to events, distributing catalogs as well as tickets for performances, vernissages, and trade fairs, and by helping to organize different training groups in cycling, skiing, tennis and soccer.