House at Münstergasse 26

About the building

This narrow but very deep house links two streets: one front faces Kramgasse (No. 25), the other the point where Münstergasse opens onto Münsterplatz. In 1959 Paul Hofer still listed it as Münsterplatz 2 and noted that both parts share one staircase. The more valuable side is the southern one: above the strongly curved basket arch of the arcade rise three narrow upper storeys, each with two segmental-arched windows.

According to Hofer the house received its present form around 1763, when Emanuel Friedrich Fischer (1708–1773) ended his term as bailiff of Thorberg. A tiled stove from the Gnehm workshop on the first floor bears the same date, 1763. Hofer attributes the design to Niklaus Sprüngli, and the Wikipedia list of cultural properties counts the house among his outstanding works. In style it stands at the transition from Louis XV to Louis XVI. The Kramgasse front is older and, according to Hofer, dates from about 1730 to 1735.

The house is said to have played a part in Bern's domestic culture as early as about 1700: according to a later account by Sigmund Wagner, the wife of Brigadier Vincenz Stürler was the first in Bern to introduce Louis XIV interiors here. Hofer thought the story embellished but hardly invented; nothing of those interiors survives. From 1834 to 1842 the house served as the school of the Burgerliche Mädchenschule, and later the neighbouring conservatory used the second floor. The staircase was restored in 1945 and the south front in 1951/52.

The detail not to miss is the wrought-iron window railings on the Münsterplatz side. Hofer saw them as a high point of Louis XV ironwork: the railings on the first and second floors mirror each other, and on the second floor a flourish like a signature fills the central panel.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Paul Hofer: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Kantons Bern, Bd. II (Die Stadt Bern: Gesellschaftshäuser und Wohnbauten), 1959, S. 301–304 (dort als Münsterplatz 2 / Kramgasse 25) · Wikipedia (de): Liste der Kulturgüter in Bern/Innere Stadt (Ost), KGS 9122 · Wikidata: Q19362493 · Wikipedia (de): Niklaus Sprüngli · Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Untere Altstadt, alle Adressen (Übersicht, ohne Einzelbeschrieb)