Apartment house at Dufourstrasse 28

About the building

At the corner of Dufourstrasse and Hallwylstrasse in Kirchenfeld stands a house you might first take for a villa. In fact it was built in 1900 as a rental building. Design and ownership lay with the Bern architects Danuser & Brönnimann, who also acted as the client.

The city inventory describes it as a rental house with the bearing of a Renaissance Revival villa. Its volumes are loosely arranged, and a mansard roof above a cornice with beam ends closes the building. Three elements give it a picturesque air: the corner oriel with its steep, crowned cap, a tower at the back under a pyramid roof, and niches for statues and vases in the facades.

The house no longer looks quite as it did in 1900. In 1913 an extension was added on the north side and the facades were remodelled. Further additions and alterations followed in 1937, including a veranda on the south-west side. In 1998 the roof storey was rebuilt and converted; a protection contract was signed in the same year. What survives is the original fence of the corner plot – a feature many Kirchenfeld houses have kept and that shapes the look of the quarter.

The building is rated as worthy of protection and belongs to the Kirchenfeld building group, the planned district south of the Kirchenfeld bridge. The Burgergemeinde had sold the land in 1881 to the English Berne Land Company, which undertook to follow a fixed district plan. The city also rates the open space around the house as being of heritage interest.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Dufourstrasse 28 · Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Baugruppe Kirchenfeld · Wikidata: Q139398894