Location changes
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Article summary
UEFA has been accustomed to many moves as in December 1959, the organisation left Paris for Switzerland. Then, in 1962 and 1974, UEFA moved from one building in the Swiss capital, Berne, to another and then, after 35 years in the Swiss federal capital, the organisation relocated to Nyon, a town of some 20,000 inhabitants in western Switzerland in Spring 1995. Following this move, UEFA initially operated from provisional premises in a wing of the Providentia insurance building in the town, during the three-year construction period on the organisation’s new state-of-the-art headquarters - the House of European Football, which was inaugurated on 22 September 1999.
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Imperative
Given UEFA's growth over the years, the lack of working space at the previous headquarters in Berne's Jupiterstrasse made a move imperative, and there were a number of other key reasons behind the decision to move to Nyon, taken officially by the UEFA Executive Committee on 22 April 1993. Geneva's Cointrin international airport is situated just 16 kilometres away, which was advantageous as far as the development of UEFA's future activities was concerned. Facilities in the Geneva region also offered considerable possibilities. And, perhaps most importantly, UEFA was given the opportunity by the local authorities in Nyon to buy land on the banks of the lake to build modern headquarters fully in tune with the present-day requirements of a major football organisation.
Local support
The commitment to buy and sell the plot of land, ‘La Colline', was signed by UEFA and Nyon municipal officials on 6 July 1993, and the Nyon commune council voted by a large majority on 27 September 1993 to authorise the sale of the land to UEFA. Six Swiss and four foreign architects were invited to take part in a competition for the best design project, and French architect Patrick Berger was eventually chosen in August 1994. Various administrative procedures followed, such as the approval of the area plan and request for the building permit, and companies were selected to realise the project. Preparatory work at the site started in November 1996, actual building operations began in February 1997, and the then UEFA President and current honorary UEFA president Lennart Johansson laid the foundation stone of the new building in a special ceremony on 18 April 1997.
Provisional premises
In the meantime, UEFA had rented 1,800 square metres of office space in a wing of the Providentia insurance building in Nyon in January 1994, and the 65 employees at the time were all installed in these provisional premises by February 1995, when the official move from Berne to Nyon took place. Over the next four years, UEFA continued to develop its portfolio of activities in its new, temporary surroundings - and watched its dream home take shape on the other side of Nyon...
House of European Football – La Clairière - Bois-Bougy
The House of European Football, on the shores of Lake Geneva, was inaugurated on 22 September 1999, and opened officially for business on 5 October 1999. In October 2010, a new UEFA administrative building – situated opposite the House of European Football - was inaugurated in Nyon, at a ceremony attended by UEFA's 53 member national associations and the UEFA Executive Committee. The La Clairière building enabled UEFA to bring together some of its staff members who had been based at different sites.
Situated alongside La Clairière, a third building, Bois-Bougy, opened in March 2012, to complete UEFA's football campus in Nyon.
