Holy Trinity Church with presbytery and "La Prairie"

About the building

Walking south along Schwanengasse, you have the tower of the Holy Trinity Church right in front of you. The church on Taubenstrasse is a three-aisled basilica with three apses and a tower about 45 metres high between the main façade and the presbytery. Its walls show an alternation of yellowish-white Jura stone and brick. Above the porch sits a large wheel window with twelve spokes. Plan and elevation follow the church of San Zeno in Verona closely; according to the Bauinventar this makes it one of the rare historicist buildings in Bern that follow a specific model.

After the Reformation, Catholic worship was banned in Bern for a long time, and the Catholic community made do with temporary premises until the late 1890s. On the initiative of the priest Jakob Stammler, the plot was bought in 1889. The competition was won by the Lucerne architect Heinrich Viktor von Segesser, who according to the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland was also commander of the Gotthard division; the building was carried out with the collaboration of Henry Berthold von Fischer. Because Bernese quarries refused to supply sandstone to the community during the Kulturkampf, granite from Wassen, gneiss from Ticino and Jura stone from Saint-Imier and Laufen were used. The church was consecrated on 18 June 1899, and in 1956 the Pope raised it to a minor basilica.

The presbytery at Taubenstrasse 4 was built together with the church from 1896 to 1898. Its façades of red and yellow banded brick, the round-arched windows and the lantern on the roof take up Lombard Romanesque and form a group with the church. Inside the church, the painted decoration was completed in stages up to 1922, partly covered over in 1972/73 and renewed from 2003 to 2007, including new painting of the apses by Jörg Niederberger.

At Sulgeneckstrasse 7 stands the country house "La Prairie", probably built around 1734; Wikipedia mentions a core dating from 1450. It was originally called Matte and belonged, among others, to the Wagner, von Tavel and May families. The parish bought it between 1921 and 1931. In the 1970s it was to make way for a new parish centre; after protests and a reassessment the house was kept and renovated in 1991/92. Today it serves as a parish house with an open lunch table.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Taubenstrasse 6 · Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Taubenstrasse 4 · Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Sulgeneckstrasse 7 · Wikipedia (de): Dreifaltigkeitskirche (Bern) · Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz: Heinrich Viktor von Segesser · Wikidata: Q1257641