House at Gerechtigkeitsgasse 44

About the building

No. 44 stands on the north side of Gerechtigkeitsgasse, which the art historian Paul Hofer calls the sunny side. From the street you see a sandstone front above an arcaded ground floor, with two main storeys above it and a third storey that reads almost like an attic. Behind the front building lies a large courtyard with a tower-like staircase, and at the back a rear building faces Postgasse.

The client was Gabriel Manuel, at the time bailiff (Landvogt) of Grandson. According to Hofer he acquired the property in 1767 and had the house rebuilt; Hofer dates the main front to about 1775 to 1780. No architect is recorded. In date, structure and detail Hofer places the facade very close to the Sinner house, the corner building on Kreuzgasse that Karl Ludwig Sinner had built in 1767/68.

In style the house sits between two periods. Portal, door lock, marble fireplaces and panelling follow, in Hofer's 1959 description, the repertoire of mature Louis XV, that is, late Baroque. The staircase and courtyard galleries, however, already belong to early Neoclassicism. On the first and second floors Hofer counted six signed tiled stoves from the Gnehm workshop, one of them dated 1771. How much of this survives today could not be verified.

The house is listed as a cultural property of national importance (category A) and lies within Bern's Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. As you pass, look at the front door: Hofer mentions a ring knocker from the 17th century there, older than the present facade.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Paul Hofer: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Kantons Bern, Bd. II (Die Stadt Bern: Gesellschaftshäuser und Wohnbauten), 1959, S. 114–115 · Wikipedia (de): Liste der Kulturgüter in Bern/Innere Stadt (Ost), KGS 9194 · Wikidata: Q19362486 · Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Untere Altstadt, alle Adressen (Übersicht, ohne Einzelbeschrieb)