Mobimo is celebrating its 25th anniversary. What started off as a vision of the two founders and driving forces, Alfred “Fredy” Meili and Karl Reichmuth, has grown into one of the leading real estate companies in Switzerland.

I think that we can state with justified pride that Mobimo has done many things very well in the past 25 years. The stable environment in this country and the characteristics of “real estate” as a commodity in itself certainly guarantee the success of a sector as a whole. But we had the skill to set our course for steady growth and long-term success.

From the beginning, Mobimo’s aspiration was to differentiate itself both in terms of the quality of its developments and its own portfolio as well as its strong sense of aesthetics and high-quality architecture. The name Mobimo – deriving from the German for mobile real estate – was also intended to stand as a promise of consistent quality.

Of course Mobimo’s own portfolio and condominium projects have evolved significantly over the course of the past quarter of a century. Additional properties were added and others, in turn, sold. Properties that were still seen as attractive and avant-garde 20 years ago are viewed quite differently in retrospect. But a building always has to be viewed through the lens of its zeitgeist, and that is what we want to do in this book.

This magazine for Mobimo’s 25th anniversary is a “stocktake”. Its aim is to commemorate the first 25 years of Mobimo with selected stories, anecdotes, buildings – and above all the people behind the stories.

Mobimo bears a responsibility. We shape townscapes and cityscapes with our buildings and sites. The 81-metre-tall Mobimo Tower, for example, is a landmark building in Zurich West. And there’s the Aeschbachquartier in Aarau, witness to an impressive industrial history, but an area that subsequently lost some of its lustre. It was Mobimo that breathed new life into the site with its development expertise.

Mobimo’s head office is in Lucerne. Since the merger with LO Holding in 2009, however, we have also been a “Suisse romande” company. The Quartier du Flon, the vibrant work, shopping and leisure district in Lausanne: Mobimo was able to turn this “rough diamond’ into a jewel, both for its own portfolio and for city living in Lausanne.

And that is the crucial part of our responsibility. We create the spaces, and we create them with passion, but it is the people who actually fill them with life. They turn them into spaces for living, working and relaxing. And that is why people and their needs will continue to be the focus of our work for the next 25 years.

On behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to thank all those people on Mobimo’s 25-year road to success who have built with us, worked with us and supported us. Thank you for the trust you have placed in us time and time again.