Museum of Decorative Arts and Design

Courage and Care

From September 13 to November 23, 2025, the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (Skārņu Street 10, Riga) invites you to visit the exhibition “COURAGE AND CARE. Architecture and Design: Roche’s Vision”, which will reveal the Swiss pharmaceutical company’s progressive approach to architecture and graphic design, and highlight the shared scientific and cultural values between Switzerland and Latvia.

The aim of the exhibition is to tell the modern viewer how the bold thinking, tolerance, and care of the company's management were directed not only toward the development of pharmaceutical science, but also towards thinking about an accurate and high-quality visual identity. The best professionals were invited to work; architects and graphic designers were given creative freedom and the opportunity to experiment, thus creating a new functional architecture and an unusually diverse graphic design language that corresponded to the specifics of the industry.

For the first time, a wider audience will be able to acquaint themselves with materials stored in the Roche archive in Basel, Switzerland: images by legendary photographers of the early 20th century, Roberts Johansons (Latvia) and Robert Spreng (Switzerland), original sketches and drawings by architects, as well as a kaleidoscopic range of printed works.

The central axis of the exhibition will be the story of two architects: Latvian Aleksandrs Klinklāvs and Swiss Otto Rudolf Salvisberg. Aleksandrs Klinklāvs (1899–1982) was the architect of the first building in the functionalist style specifically for the Roche company outside Switzerland. In 1932–1933, he designed a building in Riga, Miera Street 25, which was simultaneously intended for production and office use. Klinklāvs is considered one of the brightest students of Ernests Štālbergs; in the process of training, the professor was oriented towards the theoretical principles of the Bauhaus school and the thinking of a distinctly rationalist architecture. In the history of Latvian architecture of the 1920s-1930s, he has been recognised as the most outstanding specialist in the field of healthcare architecture. Klinklāvs' creative legacy is convincingly distinguished by its rationally thought-out and proportionally balanced international modernism, which is particularly demonstrated by the Roche building in Riga.

Otto Rudolf Salvisberg (1882–1940) was the architect of the first building designed specifically for the Roche company in Basel (Bldg 21 – administrative building). Completed in 1936, slightly later than the Riga project, but both buildings are undeniably united by a thoughtfully ascetic architectural language and functionality based on the logic of modernism. Salvisberg recognized the need to create architecture tailored to the company's requirements. The functional modernism he embodied throughout his career is also clearly reflected in the interiors he designed, where rational, user-friendly detailing remains strikingly relevant even today.

Another important aspect of the exhibition is Roche’s bold and innovative approach to shaping the visual identity of its products through graphic design. How can the effectiveness of medicines be portrayed through visual means? Roche advertisements of the 1950s-1970s are distinguished by strong visual metaphors, diverse and original artistic techniques. The selection of Roche information sheets and brochures presented in the exhibition vividly illustrates the creative spirit, revealing the evolution of graphic design in the 20th century, how it vividly responds to the trends and regional peculiarities of each decade.

Several designers have worked as leading artists in the company’s Graphics Department, including Max Breitschmid (1911–1970) and Theo Ballmer (1902–1965)). Of particular note is the legendary Jan Tschichold (1902–1974) – a pioneer of photomontage, typographer and book designer, and an inspiration for the Bauhaus – who played an invaluable role in the development of 20th-century graphic design.

The museum is grateful for the collaboration with the The Roche Historical Collection and Archive in Basel, Switzerland and SIA Roche Latvija in collecting valuable evidence of 20th-century architecture and design. This shows how one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies has maintained its commitment to modernism, rational architecture, and expressive design throughout the ages, as evidenced by the most striking examples of Roche buildings in Basel, Latvia and the world, as well as the informative publications created by Roche's graphic design department.