Pope Pius IX gifted the white Carrara marble statue of the Immaculate Conception as Our Lady of Geneva in 1859.

Pope Pius XII later issued a pontifical decree Nominis Catholici Urbe which raised the shrine to the status of minor basilica on 4 August 1954.

This neo-Gothic building, whose appearance is partly inspired by Notre-Dame de Bonsecours and Saint-Nicolas of Nantes,[4] broke ground thanks to the city of Geneva, which had ceded land to religious communities to build places of worship, and through donations and manual labor provided by the Geneva Catholics.

Some are semi-industrial production neo-Gothic, but most show the evolution of the art of stained glass during the twentieth century, in various styles, after those of Claudius Lavergne (installed from 1857 to 1875).

From 1912, several artists have successively contributed to adorn the basilica: Charles Brunner, Alexandre Cingria, Maurice Denis, Gherri Moro, Paul Monnier, Jean-Claude Morend, Théodore Strawinsky.