In 1984, a committee was initiated for the construction of a church on the motorway in Canton Uri. The aim was to inaugurate this church on the occasion of the 700-year jubilee of the Swiss Confederation in 1991. The Government of the canton of Uri mandated Lieutenant-General Jörg Zumstein to head a working group for the project. In 1987, preliminary ideas were put forward for a proposal to build the church in the rocks opposite the Gotthard motorway service area. Unfortunately, this idea fell through for financial reasons.

In 1988, the Government of the canton of Uri asked its director of public construction, Anton Stadelmann, to revise the idea for a «Place of Contemplation» on the site of the motorway service area. The project team launched a competition for ideas in 1996 to which 362 architects responded. From these, six were shortlisted for the final architectural competition. The architect Pascale Guignard and her partner Stefan Saner convinced the jury with their proposal and were then directed to elaborate plans.

Finally, in 1998, the «Place of Contemplation» was built and inaugurated in October of that year for the 150th anniversary of the Federal Constitution, at a cost of some 1.2 million francs.

After twenty years in use, the site was lightly renovated in 2018 at a cost of about 65,000 francs.