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Catalans Abroad
3 May 2020 2.00 h

JULIETA SIEBER-GUARDIOLA

Julieta studied architecture at the ETSAB and moved to Switzerland in 1995.

A dynamic city

Why did you leave Cat­alo­nia?
It was 1995, three years after the Olympics in Barcelona. As a young ar­chi­tect I had a lot of ideas and was look­ing for­ward to work­ing on in­ter­est­ing pro­jects. How­ever, the most im­por­tant thing at that time was my lovely two year-old daugh­ter I had to sup­port and take care of. It wasn’t easy to get work as an ar­chi­tect in Barcelona, so I de­cided to try my luck in Switzer­land.
Why Switzer­land?
Dur­ing my stud­ies, I got in­tro­duced to Swiss ar­chi­tec­ture. Since my mum was Swiss, I was al­ready fa­mil­iar with Swiss cul­ture and the Ger­man lan­guage, and my older sis­ter al­ready lived in Basel. Now I’ve lived here for 25 years, al­most half of my life.
Are you happy with the job op­por­tu­ni­ties you found in your adop­tive coun­try?
Now I’m very happy, but at the very be­gin­ning it was quite hard to find a job. I was very proud of my ar­chi­tec­ture stud­ies in Barcelona and I had very good pro­fes­sors like Es­teve Bonell, Enric Mi­ralles, Joan Mar­garit and Pep Llinàs, but this was ob­vi­ously not enough to earn the con­fi­dence of the Swiss peo­ple. They were very con­ser­v­a­tive and the ar­chi­tec­ture and con­struc­tion sec­tor at that time was dom­i­nated by men. Women had to choose be­tween fam­ily or a pro­fes­sional ca­reer, which made it even more dif­fi­cult to get a job due to my sit­u­a­tion of hav­ing a small daugh­ter. My first em­ploy­ment was in Zurich, in a small pri­vate ar­chi­tec­ture of­fice where I gained a lot of ex­pe­ri­ence over four years. Then I moved back to Basel and started a new job at the “Hochbauamt Basel-Stadt” where I’m still work­ing. As a pro­ject man­ager ar­chi­tect I’m re­spon­si­ble for pro­jects that rep­re­sent the in­ter­ests of Basel and its res­i­dents. Most of the pro­jects have to be ap­proved by the Basel par­lia­ment. Major in­vest­ments are sub­ject of a ref­er­en­dum. Di­rect democ­racy and con­sen­sus are char­ac­ter­is­tics of Switzer­land’s cul­ture.
What do you think is the best thing about liv­ing there?
It’s fas­ci­nat­ing to live and work in such an in­ter­na­tional and dy­namic city as Basel. Two of the world’s largest phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies - No­var­tis and Roche - were founded and also have their head­quar­ters here. A large num­ber of in­no­v­a­tive re­search com­pa­nies have grown up around them. Highly skilled work­ers come to the city from all around the world. Basel of­fers out­stand­ing mu­se­ums and there is al­ways an in­ter­est­ing ex­hi­bi­tion to see on a cloudy week­end. We also enjoy ex­cel­lent the­atre, which in­cludes opera and bal­let and a mul­ti­tude of dif­fer­ent music fes­ti­vals through­out the year. With thir­teen thou­sand stu­dents, the Uni­ver­sity of Basel (the old­est in Switzer­land) is also an im­por­tant part of Basel’s life. The city is full of con­trasts, with a well-pre­served me­dieval town cen­tre with nar­row streets, his­tor­i­cal build­ings from the 19th cen­tury and a di­ver­sity of con­tem­po­rary build­ings de­signed by in­ter­na­tion­ally renowned ar­chi­tects.
What would you most like to change?
I was the first woman to get a full time job as pro­ject man­ager in my de­part­ment and I feel proud of that. The sit­u­a­tion has im­proved over the last twenty years, but equal op­por­tu­ni­ties for men and women do not yet exist. I would like to see more women in lead­er­ship po­si­tions.
What do you miss most from home?
When I was a child, we used to go visit our grand­par­ents over the week­end in Vila-Seca. My grand­fa­ther was a farmer and we used to spend the day with him in the coun­try­side. I miss the taste of the fresh fruits from the or­chard. And I also miss the calçotades and es­cali­vades we used to have out­doors on the farm with fam­ily and friends. I miss walk­ing in the gothic dis­trict of Barcelona. I miss shop­ping at the Gra­cia mar­ket. I miss eat­ing seafood and good fish and I miss the blue of the sea... I miss my par­ents, my friends, my rel­a­tives and an­other very im­por­tant thing: speak­ing Cata­lan. I often go to Barcelona and I’m very aware and wor­ried about the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion with the re­pres­sion, the po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers and the Cata­lans in exile. I miss free­dom and jus­tice in my own coun­try and this makes me very sad.
What char­ac­terises your neigh­bour­hood?
I live with my fam­ily in an apart­ment in the St. Jo­hann’s dis­trict very close to Kan­nen­feld­park. The park is al­ways care­fully main­tained and has jog­ging paths, play fa­cil­i­ties for chil­dren, a pad­dling pool, a gar­den-the­atre and even a room with fur­ni­ture and a kitchen that can be rented for pri­vate use. But the most beau­ti­ful parts are the cen­turies-old trees and the rose gar­den. A few min­utes from home on the tram I reach my of­fice be­side the “Münster” in the city cen­tre. My of­fice is in a build­ing that for hun­dreds of years was the res­i­dence of church rep­re­sen­ta­tives. It has a clois­ter in­side that is cov­ered by a beau­ti­ful vault made of glass tiles, with a nice court­yard where I meet and have cof­fee with my col­leagues under the trees. That’s a real priv­i­lege.
What is the best ex­pe­ri­ence you’ve had in your adop­tive coun­try?
I’ve had many good ex­pe­ri­ences in Switzer­land, but I would like to men­tion my ex­pe­ri­ence with the ed­u­ca­tion of our two chil­dren. Like more than ninety per­cent of the chil­dren in Basel, they both went to the state-run school. They came into con­tact with chil­dren from dif­fer­ent cul­tures and who spoke lan­guages from all over the world. The school didn’t only focus on trans­fer­ring knowl­edge but also on so­cial and emo­tional as­pects. The chil­dren learned to have their own opin­ion, take re­spon­si­bil­ity and re­spect each other from a very early age. Strong re­la­tions be­tween the pupils were pro­moted through the­atre and music, mak­ing trips to visit other Eu­ro­pean cities and going ski­ing to­gether in the Alps. They both still have very good friends from that time.
Do you plan to go back to Cat­alo­nia?
Yes, I would like to go back to Cat­alo­nia with my hus­band when we both re­tire, but we don’t want to lose the di­rect con­tact with our two chil­dren. They have been to Cat­alo­nia many times and speak Cata­lan flu­ently, but their roots are in Switzer­land. It will all de­pend on their pro­fes­sional ca­reers and the op­por­tu­ni­ties they find. In a way, I feel that his­tory is re­peat­ing it­self, who knows what the fu­ture holds...

CATA­LANS ABROAD basel - switzer­land

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