Corporate architecture has been given a bad name. It stands for everything bland and homogenous, faceless and globalised in the worst sense of the word. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In Switzerland, a mini-city that is taking shape on the banks of the Rhine proves that corporate design can be as radical, as engaging and as compelling as any of the grand arts buildings that populate the arts sections of newspapers and the blue-sky backgrounds of coffee-table books.

Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant which, in various guises, has been around for about 250 years, is building a campus in Basel using a selection of architects from around the world. It is a new corporate city, a network of tree-lined streets and squares, defined by the façades of a dream selection of designers. It is almost a little too perfect.