Office Building at Jungfraustrasse 1

About the building

In the Kirchenfeld, a district with many villas, a building at Jungfraustrasse 1 looks quite unlike its neighbours: a three-storey flat-roofed cube whose façades are identical on all sides, made of glass and light metal. It was designed by the Bern architect Frank Geiser for MOBAG Immobilien AG of Zurich. The project and building permit were ready in 1963, and construction took place from 1965 to 1967.

The building stands on the site of the historicist Villa Eichhalde. Structurally it is a reinforced-concrete frame. Plan and elevation follow a single grid. In the middle there is a core with stairs, lifts and services, and around it the office floors can be divided freely. The façade is a hung skin of glass and aluminium, a so-called curtain wall, and looks the same on all four sides.

The city heritage office describes the building's character as the slightly cool elegance typical of its time and places it in the tradition of the architectural language developed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Geiser had already built a comparable but smaller office building at Thunstrasse 73 in 1962/63. The federal inventory of cultural property lists the building as an object of national importance.

In 2001/02 the façade was renovated and the glazing replaced, to plans by Burckhardt + Partner on behalf of Eichhalde AG. Today the Embassy of Argentina has its seat here. If you stand in front of it, look at the even grid of the façade: it shows that the whole house is built on one single module.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Jungfraustrasse 1 · KGS-Inventar (BABS): Bürogebäude, KGS 16933, Kategorie A · Cancillería Argentina: Embassy in Switzerland · Wikidata Q118931158