The Architecture of Switzerland’s Chocolate Epicenter: The Lindt Home of Chocolate Museum
- vsanmartindiaz
- Jun 6, 2023
- 5 min read
Within the folds of the rolling hills and lush green mountains lies the beating heart of Switzerland’s chocolate industry, the Lindt Home of Chocolate.
Patrons come here every day for informative tours and treats, which are only elevated by the masterful design of the museum. From the clean, white brick walls of the towering facilities to the intricate frameworks of its interiors, Lindt has designed an impressive place to call home.
Where You Start
Though many of the patrons that walk through the doors of Lindt look forward to the delicious taste of their various chocolate selections, one attendant finds the area where he began his journey to be the sweetest part of the place’s design.
A Canadian land management employee, Simon McKenzie, said, “The parking garage is extremely impressive. I work in land planning out in Canada, and one parking spot is worth 100,000 dollars. I’m just wondering how much this parking garage is worth and why they built it the way they did.”
The entrance to the parking lot is very clearly pointed out to those who arrive by vehicle, with the large blue Parking signs sprinkled throughout the trail to the entrance of the underground garage. Security gates meant to uphold the capacity of the garage to a suitable amount stand at the entrance. These gates are responsive to opening for cars coming into the garage and quickly react to the cars that scan out of the garage as well.
The parking lot of the Lindt chocolate factory, like the rest of Switzerland’s many amenities and structures, is streamlined for user-friendliness and efficiency. The garage lies underneath the factory, leaving room for taxis, busses, and pedestrians to roam the open areas of the facility freely without cramping the space. The walls are flat concrete, simple but effective in bringing attention to the parking spots and cars on the floor.
Each parking spot is installed with a high-frequency plate sensor underneath the concrete that can accurately detect when a vehicle has taken up space in that spot. The light above the spot will then light up green or red depending on if a car has inhabited the spot. It will light up green when a car has not taken up the spot and will light up red when a car has filled it.
The borders of the parking spots are striking black, sticking out against the white concrete of the garage’s bottom. Black arrows accompany this aesthetic, which points to the direction in which traffic should flow within the parking garage.
Ticket booths that are used to purchase parking garage vouchers for drivers are directly next to the exit to the parking lot, ensuring visitors can easily locate their voucher stations, and making the experience of entering the factory that much more convenient.
Even the ways to get to the main factory floor from the parking lot have proved to be elegant in design and practical. The elevators for the garage lie in the dead center of the facility with glass doors that slide open when a person wishes to enter through them. These elevators take visitors straight to the first floor of the facility.
Additionally, there are stairs for patrons hoping to get some steps in before they stuff themselves with Lindt chocolate that also leads to the visitors’ entrance of the museum.
For those even braver, there is a curtailed sidewalk along the edges of the parking garage ramp leading back to the surface level where the Lindt chocolate museum lies. Those who take this path must be weary of incoming cars entering the parking lot, however.
Where You End Up
After making their way from the parking garage to the chocolate emporium, the entrance hits guests with the sweet smell of that world-famous Lindt chocolate. The sugary, sweet, and rich flavors of chocolate fill the noses of enterers with the swinging open of the facility’s grand glass doors.
A large golden whisk drips milk chocolate down the sides of a glowing chocolate fountain in the center of the Lindt Home of Chocolate. A pump within the center of the fountain pushes chocolate up and through the fountain constantly, producing the illusion of an endless flow of chocolate being produced.
Yohanes Lumik, a German visitor who absolutely loves chocolate, said, “The best was the entrance room for my taste. It was so wide and shiny and the best part of the tour so far.”
The place’s architecture continues to impress viewers, as the surrounding area is colored a pleasant bone color. This, along with the white bricks that line the outside walls of the facility, supports the factory-like and clean feel that Lindt chocolate is commonly associated with.
The spiraling white-cement staircase that lines the back wall of the museum is reminiscent of the walls of a Lindt factory floor. These stairs lead attendants to the start of the Lindt chocolate tour.
What You Take Away
The first room of the tour proves to be the most striking to guests. It sets the tone for the rest of the tour and what is to be expected from Lindt as the self-guided audio tour continues onward.
This room, filled with model cacao trees, allows visitors to become immersed in the world of chocolate from its very inception. This is only further supported by the room that follows directly after.
The timeline of chocolate’s formation into what is commonly associated with chocolate today houses a circular round table with projected images of the cacao plant’s processing into cocoa all the way to the use of chocolate in the old European diet.
This room’s walls also share a projector-like quality, depicting the visual history of the use of chocolate in Europe from its gathering in South America to the tables of European elites. These holographic images transcend language and allow visitors of all nationalities to understand what the illustrations within the museum are meant to depict.
The room that follows is the main attraction of the facility, it's chocolate tasting.
Yohanes goes on to state, “I’d recommend this place to anyone, it's very informative and interesting. I might recommend it even more once we get a taste of the chocolate in it!”
The pillars erected in the center of the room are flowing with liquid dark, white, and milk chocolate. These chocolate pillars dispense tablespoon-sized portions of chocolate for visitors to taste as they learn about the creation of modern-day chocolate by Lindt.
Models of machines that created the chocolate bars are represented in this room as well, combining the use of screens and physical models to recreate the chocolate-making process. Visitors can interact and view these designs that give them a realistic sense of Lindt’s factory floor.
Finally, within the back portion of the room, is the chocolate bar-tasting section. The walls are lined with tubes filled with the raw ingredients of some of the museum’s most favored flavors. This includes coconut, orange, cinnamon, and even nuts.
Guests can place their hands under various chocolate bar dispensers in this room with different chocolate flavors and be met with a small piece of that flavor’s chocolate bar to taste. This room’s design makes people feel as if they, too, were Lindt chocolatiers taste-testing their finalized chocolate products.
There are almost 30 Lindt chocolate flavors that currently exist.
This experience that guests of the Lindt Home of Chocolate go through would not be possible without the architectural design of the entirety of the facility catering directly to guests. This is displayed from the very start where guests park to even enter the chocolate emporium and continues to be shown until the very end of the museum tour during the chocolate tasting portion.
These architectural design choices make the Lindt experience feel smooth, clean, and most importantly sweet! Everything within the walls of the museum keeps visitors engaged and focused on what Lindt in the heart of Switzerland is known for: chocolate.
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