The Acacias district

Campus Pictet de Rochemont · 21 Nov 2022

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The Acacias district takes its name from a tree that is very common in the neighbourhood, but also from a hamlet that once stood there. The predominantly agricultural suburb of Acacias — attached to Geneva in 1816 — became industrialised in the 19th century.

In 1935, major railway infrastructure work was undertaken, which involved burying the river Drize under the Route des Jeunes (Road of the Young), completed in 1942 and named after the 800 young people “more eager for action than words”, who volunteered to build the road while their elders were in the army.

The agricultural district of Acacias, where Pictet is headquartered today, became industrialized in the first half of the 20th century. A number of factories and plants were located here, including the Laiteries Réunies in 1913, the British American Tobacco factory in 1939 and the Motosacoche factory in 1905, whose legendary machines travelled the roads of the world for almost half a century. Anecdotally, the Motosacoche workshop was located at Route des Acacias 48, which today houses several hundred Pictet employees.