Art in Bern · Building

Rosengarten Bern

The Rosengarten on Alter Aargauerstalden in Bern was a cemetery for over a hundred years and has been a public park above the Old City since 1913.

Visiting

Getting there: Bus 10 to the stop “Rosengarten”.
Open: Public park, no opening hours.
Admission: Free.
Tip: Roses and irises bloom in summer, the Japanese cherry trees at the end of March and early April. Large playground, restaurant at the south entrance and a view over the old town to the Minster. A steep path leads down to the BärenPark.

Checked 24 October 2026. Sources: Stadt Bern – Rosengarten · Bern Welcome – Rose Garden · Bern Welcome – Restaurant Rosengarten

Address: Alter Aargauerstalden 31
Built: Cemetery from 1765, park from 1913/14, pergola 1988
Architect: City gardener Emil Albrecht (plan 1914); pavilion by the municipal building office; pergola by Anton Herrmann and Chi-Chain Herrmann-Chong
Style: Geometric garden with a cross-shaped avenue
Today: Public park with rosarium, reading pavilion and restaurant
Protection: worthy of protection (Bauinventar)

About the building

From the Rosengarten you look out over the roofs of the Old City to the Minster and the Nydegg Church. The reason the park sits up here above the Aargauerstalden has to do with death: in 1751 the city bought the land because the Klösterli cemetery down by the Aare had become too small, and burials began here in 1765. Even then the place was called the Rosengarten cemetery. According to a brochure by the city's parks department, 'rose garden' was long an expression for a cemetery, so the name has nothing to do with today's rose collection.

Around 1830 the city enlarged the cemetery and gave it a wall and a wrought-iron gate. The avenue of trees in the shape of a cross, which still divides the park into four fields, probably also dates from this period. The cemetery was closed in 1877, though a few burials still took place until 1880. In 1900 the Swiss Women's Association for the Common Good asked for the site to be turned into a green space. On 5 March 1913 the municipal council decided to treat the Rosengarten as a public park. City gardener Emil Albrecht presented a plan in 1914, and work began at the start of the First World War, partly to give jobs to people seeking work.

In 1917 the rosarium was planted with 3,700 roses of 130 varieties. In 1918 the small reading pavilion by the municipal building office, whose forms recall Bernese Baroque, and the pond with its fountain were added; beside the pond stand the cast-stone groups 'Europa' and 'Neptune' by Karl Hänny. The bronze bust of Jeremias Gotthelf is by Arnold Huggler; it now stands in the walled reading garden next to the pavilion, which since 1962 has housed a library of Bernese literature. Around 1960 the park was redesigned, and the summer restaurant opened in 1961.

The present pergola at the end of the long axis dates from 1988. Because the old timber pergola was in poor condition, the architects Anton Herrmann and Chi-Chain Herrmann-Chong designed a structure of bolted steel angles whose parts can be replaced one by one. In 1975 a Japanese admirer of Bern gave the city ornamental cherry trees for the slope below the restaurant; the city's chronology says 110 trees, the 2024 brochure 100. The building inventory counts the Rosengarten among the city's most important gardens.

A detail for rose lovers: the rose parterre is planted only with hybrid teas.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Alter Aargauerstalden 31 · Stadt Bern: Rosengarten, Info und Chronologie (2012) · Stadtgrün Bern: Broschüre Rosengarten (2024) · Wikipedia (de): Rosengarten Bern · Wikidata: Q2167108