Living in St. Johann — Basel neighbourhood

St. Johann takes its name from the Knights of St. John, who founded a commandery here in 1206 — Celts had already settled near what is now Voltastrasse centuries earlier. Its industrial character was shaped from 1886 onward by the Kern & Sandoz dye factory on Gasstrasse, from which — via Sandoz and the 1996 merger with Ciba-Geigy — today's Novartis group emerged. Since 2001, the former factory site has been transforming, under a masterplan by architect Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani, into the Novartis Campus — featuring buildings by nine Pritzker Prize laureates (including Frank Gehry, SANAA, Diener & Diener, Tadao Ando, Renzo Piano), a globally unmatched concentration of star architecture on a single corporate site. The Roche headquarters with its towers is clearly visible from here on the other side of the Rhine. St. Johanns-Park on the Rhine recalls the area's earlier use as pastureland with climbing sculptures of pigs and geese, and the Rhine riverside path leads all the way to Huningue in France — Alsace lies right on the doorstep. Curiously, St. Johann railway station belongs to the SBB but is served exclusively by French trains — one of only two such "ghost stations" in Switzerland. On Saturdays, the market at Vogesenplatz draws crowds — one of Basel's oldest neighbourhood markets.