Red Square (Roter Platz), officially the Stadtlounge or City Lounge, is a set of streets in St. Gallen's Bleicheli district covered from wall to wall in a soft red surface. The Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist and the architect Carlos Martinez designed it as a public living room among office blocks, with sofas, tables, a fountain and even a car under the same red skin. It opened in November 2005.
Red Square at a glance
- Where: the Bleicheli district, the banking quarter between the main station and the old town, around the head office of the Raiffeisen banking group.
- Opened: 3 November 2005, after a design competition; the red surface was renewed in 2020.
- By: the artist Pipilotti Rist with Carlos Martinez Architekten.
- What it is today: a free public space of about 2,600 square metres, open day and night, used as a lunch spot, meeting point and playground.
- Time needed: 15–30 minutes, plus a second look after dark when the lamps come on.
From textile mills to a red carpet
The Bleicheli lies just outside St. Gallen's medieval walls. Its name recalls the bleaching fields where the city's linen was once laid out in the sun, and in the 19th century, when St. Gallen was one of the world's great centres of embroidery, the quarter filled with textile factories. In the 20th century banks and insurance companies took over, and the district became a place of functional office buildings that people walked through rather than stayed in.
To change that, the City of St. Gallen and the Raiffeisen banking group, which has its head office here, launched a design competition. Pipilotti Rist and Carlos Martinez won with the idea of a public living room: instead of a square with a few benches, they treated the streets as an interior, with a floor, furniture and ceiling lights. The Stadtlounge opened on 3 November 2005. It belongs jointly to the city, Raiffeisen Switzerland and the Raiffeisen pension fund, and in 2020 the worn red floor was replaced with a new polyurethane surface.
What to look for
- The red floor: a soft, slightly springy surface that runs over pavements, kerbs, benches and the fountain alike, as if a carpet had been poured over the street.
- The car: a sports car parked in the middle of the lounge, coated in the same red as everything else. It is the most photographed object on the square.
- The lounge furniture: rounded sofas set back from the walkway, blob-shaped chairs around low tables, and long benches and tables where about 20 people can hold a meeting outdoors.
- The hanging lamps: big oval lights hang on cables between the office buildings like floating stones. After dark they glow in changing colours.
- The contrast: stand back and look at how the red meets the grey and glass façades of the banks around it. That clash is the point of the work.
Why everyone says Red Square
The official name is Stadtlounge, but almost everyone in St. Gallen calls it Roter Platz, Red Square, simply because of the colour. Pipilotti Rist, born in 1962 in Grabs in the canton of St. Gallen, is best known for video installations full of colour and soft, walk-in spaces. Here she did something similar with a whole street, and because it is open to anyone, the piece only works when people use it.
Tips for your visit
- Come twice if you can: in daylight for photos of the red against the office façades, and after dark when the lamps change colour.
- Sit down and use it. The lounge is a public space, and on weekday lunchtimes it fills with office workers eating outside, while children play on it at weekends.
- Combine it with the Textile Museum a short walk away, then continue to the old town and the Abbey District.
Nearby
- Textile Museum St. Gallen: lace, embroidery and pattern books that explain the textile boom that shaped the Bleicheli.
- Abbey District (Stiftsbezirk): a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983, with the baroque cathedral and the Abbey Library.
- Old town bay windows: the streets around the Marktgasse and Spisergasse are full of carved and painted oriel windows (Erker) on the houses of rich merchants.
- Marktplatz: the market square at the edge of the old town, with the statue of Vadian, the humanist, doctor and mayor who led the Reformation in St. Gallen.
See St. Gallen with World City Trail
Our St. Gallen scavenger hunt turns the old town into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops and takes around 2 hours, with about 26 minutes of walking. You can play in English, German, French, Italian or Spanish.
If you prefer a different format, there is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in St. Gallen.
Play the St. Gallen scavenger hunt →
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Facts checked in October 2026.