U.N. Buildings in Geneva - Walking tour

Geneva in Switzerland is home to many buildings of the United Nations. Over the past 20 years, in the course of my work, I had the opportunity to visit many of these buildings. This photo-essay is about a walking tour to some of the important U.N. buildings.

Introduction

The United Nations were started as "The League of Nations" at the Paris Peace conference in 1919 following the First World War. Its aim was to promote world peace. Palace of Nations building in Geneva was built in 1929-1936 to host the League of Nations. After the second world war, League of Nations was replaced by the United Nations with its main office in New York.

United Nations have many specialized organisations such as - World Health Organisation (WHO), International Labour Organisation (ILO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations High Commission for Refugies (UNHCR), United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC), United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF). Many of these organisations (except for UNICEF and UNESCO) have their head offices in Geneva.

Palace of Nations building hosts the general assemblies and meetings of some of these organisations. The map below shows 4 of the UN Buildings, that are part of this itinerary.

Start the tour at WHO

We start our tour at the the World Health Organisation (WHO) building, located at the top of a hill. Take bus number 8 from the railway station and its last stop is in front of the WHO building on Avenue Appia.

Till the 1990s, it was easy to go inside the WHO building and move around. However, after the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the USA, they have more security checks now and you need to have an official invitation to enter WHO.

During the annual world health assembly when ministers of health gather in Geneva, the flags of all the member countries are displayed in the WHO lobby.

Even if you can't enter WHO building, you can walk around and see. In front of the WHO building is the UNAIDS building, while the park in front of it has two groups of statues - the river blindness statues and the vaccination statues. The WHO building is number 1 on the map above.

ILO building

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) building is a short walk downhill from WHO. The ILO lobby has some huge columns that give it a monumental feeling - its architecture somehow reminds me of the Brazilian capital, Brasilia. It is number 2 on the map above.

Across the road from the ILO building, in a grassy meadow, there is the statue of Miguel Hidalgo Y Castilla, who had led the fight for independence of Mexico from the Spanish colonial rule.

Palace of Nations building

From ILO to Palace of Nations (PoN), you can walk down the road that goes downhill in front of ILO or you can take the path behind the Miguel Hidalgo statue that will take you near the USA embassy and the International Red Cross museum. PoN is number 3 on the map.

Palace of Nations has public tours so you can visit it as tourist. Go through the entrance on the left side of the gate and you need a valid identity document such as your passport to enter.

In the park outside the gates of PoN, you can see the Mahatma Gandhi statue.

PoN has the general assembly hall where the different UN organisations hold their assemblies. The image below is from May 2011 with Bill Gates speaking to the World Health assembly.

Among all the guests that I have seen at the assembly, there have been many presidents and prime ministers, but my favourites were Amartaya Sen from India and Archbishop Desmond Tutu from South Africa.

The main building has many places that make for good photo-opportunities.

Do not forget to visit the back of the assembly building that has some wonderful trees, a nice view of the Geneva lake and some monuments as shown in the images below. Rather than walking around all the building to go to the back, an easy way is to go to the cafeteria on the basement level and then take the back exit.

International Intellectual Property Rights building

As you walk down from the PoN building, you will see the "Broken chair" of the anti-mines campaign and the fountains in the main square (first image on the top). Go on to the International Intellectual Property Rights (IIPR) building across the road on the right side.

In the images, I have labelled it as WTO (World Trade Organisation) as in my mind patents for intellectual property rights are invariable linked with WTO issues, however these are two separate organisations, though probably they are inter-linked.

I like the fountains and the sculptures in the gardens of this building.

Conclusions

Across the road from IIPR, there is a park with some interesting sculptures, where you can rest.

Further down the road, you can see the international workers' union building and international telecommunication organisation buildings. If you are not tired enough, you can continue. If you face PoN square and take the road going to your right, you will come across UNHCR building and then further down, main WTO building.

That will take you to the Geneva botanical gardens and the lakeside. I stop here today, that will be part of another walking tour!

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Winter Talk

It is winter finally. I had been hearing that it was going to be the worst winter in the last twenty years but the temperatures in Bologna had continued to be good. It felt more like spring than winter. Then, ten days ago, finally the winter came. Still I was going out with a light jacket.

Acquaintances from our apartment block would slowly shake their heads and complain, “It is so cold”. Actually, I didn’t think so, but I played along and said, “It is time now for winter. Almost the end of November. It won’t be right if it was not cold!”

Talking about the temperatures with casual acquaintances is like a game. In the summer it goes like “It is so hot you know!” “This heat is unbearable.” “I wish this heat would end. I am tired of it.” And then it becomes, “It is so cold you know!” “This cold is so tiring and depressing.” “I am waiting for the spring.” Like steps of valtzer. Predictable. You say this, then I say this and then you say that and then we will shake our heads, smile at each other and go away happy, that we played our parts well.

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But now real winter has come. Before going to Geneva, I looked at the expected temperatures in Switzerland on the internet. Minus sixteen! I almost felt sick. Must have taken those temperatures outside the Algida ice-cream factory, I thought, but I was afraid. So off went the light jacket and out came the thick winter overcoat. It was a wise decision as it turned out. It was very cold and it snowed. And it was so windy, almost like London, with cold gale brushing over the bumpy waters of lake Leman, pushing hard at you.

“Katarina!”, I told myself. I was making joke of John Grisham when he had been startled with a frightened expression during a thunderstorm  during a meeting in Bologna some time ago. But every time, there was some wind in Geneva, it was the first thing that came to my mind, Katarina. Wonder what do all the Katarinas of the world think about the idea of giving names of girls to typhoons. Must have been some unhappily married man or a tormented father, who had come up with idea?

The journey back from Geneva was very eventful. I was coming through Munich, that looked like a big white wedding cake with lovely icing on the top. Actually more like a big thick white blanket that the town had pulled up to save itself from cold. The flight to Bologna started late and on the seat next to me, there was a grumpy man, who made faces when he had to get up to let me pass on to the window seat.

“What injustice, I have to share this row with others” he seemed to say. Said something in German, that I didn’t understand and perhaps it was better that way. When the flight started, he bullied the air-hostess to go to an empty row in business class. Good riddance, I thought.

I had my camera ready but the Alps were lost under the clouds. Bologna too was lost under the clouds and after going around in circles for some time, the pilot announced that Bologna airport was closed due to heavy snow and we were going to Pisa. The grumpy old man started fighting with the airhostess. “We should go to Rimini, that is closer”, he insisted. This time in Italian.

The airhostess smiled at him and told him nicely to sit down and put on the seat belt. “Ignorant bitch” he hissed, loudly enough. To punish him probably, the pilot started to rock the little aircraft, up and down it went.

God, I am going to miss Marco’s wedding, was my first thought. Probably they will cancel the marriage, I consoled myself.

But we didn’t crash. And it was raining in Pisa. It took us three hours of bus drive to reach Bologna, through the snow and all. And, all the time, I was thinking, we were in Pisa, they could have organised a small trip for us to go around the city. A picture in front of the leaning tower! That would have been lovely.

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Geneva days

For so many years, I went to Geneva for work. Usually it meant short trips, reaching the hotel late at night, going for a meeting at WHO next day and take a train back to Milan as soon as the meeting finished. I hardly ever went out and Geneva seemed a clean, orderly and dull Swiss city.

Every thing changed in 2001, when I was working at WHO and stayed there for five months. The first month was passed in a hotel, but it was very costly so I looked around for a room. Almost all the weekends, I would travel home to Italy as my son was in school and my family had stayed back in Bologna.

I found a room in Rue Sismondi, close the central station. My American landlord, had an apartment at the top floor. She had occupied the stairs going to the top floor, putting there her book-racks and knick knacks. So the only way to go to the apartment was through the elevators, that opened in a small corridor. On the right was the part where my landlord lived with her Tunisian boyfried. On the right we were three guests in three rooms, sharing the bathroom and the kitchen.

I think of those days at "days of not talking". You respect the privacy of others, you don't look at them or talk to them, was the rule of the house that I quickly learned. If by chance I ever met the other guests, I would mumble a slow Good day or Good evening, the other would nod and that was it. In those four months, I saw only one of those other guests, a sad man in worn out clothes. The other guest's presence was felt but I never saw him. Some evenings, I heard him through the wall, talking on the telephone in German. He sounded like a young man. And, I heard his alarm clock in the morning. It would start ringing every morning at 4.45 AM. It went on ringing for about 15-20 minutes. The first few days were really traumatic. In the quiet of the morning, the alarm bell seemed to be ringing just under my pillow and it made me wake up with my heart thumping. Evidently, his sleep was deeper, since it went on and on. Then, I too got used to it. When it started to ring, I would get up, eat some yogurt, read some book, listen to the old man in the other room wake up and shuffle around. When finally our neighbour woke up and the allarm stopped, I would switch off the light and go back to sleep.

I had heard that Swiss are very particular about noise, pollution, order, etc. but no one ever said any thing to that guy about the allarm!

Rue Sismondi is the area of the sex shops and prostitutes. I was very curious about the things in the sex shop but I was also embarassed to go in and look at them properly. The use of some of the sex toys was easy to understand, but there were some strange looking things as well, and I would look at them from the corner of the eyes and wonder how they were used!

The prostitutes lived around there, and after a few days, I was mumbling "Good evening madam" to them also. Mostly the prostitutes left me in peace, hardly bothering to stop their chatting and laughing when I passed. Once I did have a closer encounter with two of them. I was coming out of the supermarket, when one of them, tall and dark, wearing a flaming red gown, that was open on the side to the top of her legs, she raised up her leg in front of me, stopping me in my tracks. Raising her eyebrows, she smiled provocatively. I panicked. "Je suis marieé", I blurted out, I am married. She laughed loudly and said that she didn't mind. Thankfully, the other girl standing next to her, said something to her and they allowed me to walk away.

One of the prostitutes on our street was an old lady of about seventy. Loud gash of red on her lips, blue colour around her eyes and snow white hair, she looked like a witch, in her spindly legs and leather mini skirt. Who would ever go with her, I wondered but perhaps elderly men preferred her? One early morning, I was supposed to catch a train and it was snowing and really cold. I saw her in her miniskirt, standing under a doorway, shivering and yet, hoping for a client in that terrible cold morning. It was one of the saddest things that I have ever seen.

That stay in Geneva has changed my relationship with the city. Walking along the lake, the science museum, the wonderful botanical gardens are my favourite activities in every visit.

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Families

October has been so hectic, full of travels. Coming from somewhere, unpacking the bags, only to pack them again with clean clothes, and going some where else. Five cities in three countries in last three weeks. The travel to India, just ten days ago, seems like it was last year.

In all this running around, there is big family new, Marco's marriage is fixed. He will get married in Delhi on 2 January.

It seems he was born only yesterday. To think of him as married makes me feel relaxed, as if an important milestone has been reached. Perhaps that is why, I found the photo exhibition of Uwe Ommer in Geneva (Switzerland) on 60th anniversary of United Nations so moving. Uwe lives in France and she had travelled to large number of countries around the world to take pictures of families. The exhibition is along the left bank of Leman lake in Geneva.

India is represented by two families. The family of Phoolwati in a village near Udaipur. She is a widow and lives with her brother's family. And Lucky's family from Delhi, a sikh businessman. Lucky's son proudly holds a bat with name of Sachin Tendulkar in their picture.

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