Switzerland Guide
Geneva
Palais des Nations
The Palais des Nations was built from 1929 to 1936 to serve as the world headquarters of the League of Nations. When the organization was re-founded in 1945 as the United Nations,, with its headquarters in New York, this complex became European HQ and was retitled UNOG ("the UN office at Geneva"). Since then it has burgeoned, and now encompasses offices administering a vast array of economic and social development work, as well as bodies dealing with the negotiation and signing of treaties and conventions of all kinds. It's also the hub of UN operations to deliver humanitarian aid and uphold human rights around the world.
This is the world's single largest conference centre for multilateral diplomacy and top-level international politicking: when the news has reports of "negotiations taking place in Geneva", they mean here.
Some areas of the Palais des Nations are open to the public for guided tours. To enter, you'll have to hand in your passport and go through airport-style security procedures (you're effectively leaving Switzerland and entering international territory). You then walk down the hill to the left, towards Porte 39 from where tours depart.
The tour includes a potted history of the UN and its philosophy, and odd factoids such as when the US denied Yasser Arafat a visa to address the UN in New York in 1988, the entire General Assembly had to fly to Geneva to hear him speak in the great Assembly Hall. The Council Chamber, which hosted the negotiations to end the 1991 Gulf War, is decorated with gold-and-sepia murals painted in 1934 by the Catalan artist José Maria Sert, depicting the progress of humankind through health, technology, freedom and peace.
The whole style of the main wing – granted to a consortium after Le Corbusier's visionary modernist design had been rejected because he hadn't used Indian ink for his drawings as instructed – is, rather ironically, a prime example of 1930s Fascist architecture, complete with cold marble floors, gigantic bronze doors and the hard lines of Neoclassicist Art Deco.
Address: Avenue de la Paix
Opening time: July & Aug daily 10am–5pm; April– June, Sept & Oct daily 10am– noon & 2–4pm; rest of year Mon– Fri 10am– noon & 2–4pm
Price: Fr.10
Website: www.unog.ch