Elfenau Barn (Great Orangery)

About the building

The courtyard of the former Elfenau country estate is dominated by a massive building: the old barn with stables. Its long side facing the courtyard is commanded by a large round-arched gateway, into whose arch a ring of small wooden candelabra-like columns has been set. To the left and right are five round-arched doors each, framed in limestone. Above rises a large half-hipped roof, reached from the north by a raised driveway.

The barn dates from the middle of the 18th century and belonged to what was then the Brunnadern estate. In 1814 to 1816 the Russian Grand Duchess Anna Feodorovna had it remodelled in elegant Empire forms, like the manor house opposite, probably by Johann Daniel Osterrieth, Karl Friedrich Waeber and Ludwig Friedrich Schnyder. The Grand Duchess also gave the estate the name Elfenau, which the Bernese council allowed in 1816. On the courtyard side the barn still survives in the state of that remodelling.

In 1838 Anna Feodorovna moved to Geneva. After her death in 1860 Bernhard von Wattenwyl bought the estate, and in 1918 his heirs sold it to the City of Bern. From 1928/29 the city's gardening department used the former farm buildings. In 1963 to 1965 the city building department converted the barn into the Great Orangery; the tall rectangular windows on the rear side date from that time.

Today, according to the city, the Great Orangery serves together with the Small Orangery as a venue for receptions and events, used by Stadtgrün Bern, the city's parks department. The building inventory counts the barn, as the largest building, among the defining parts of the complex around the main courtyard; in the inventory of cultural property it is of national importance. A detail for the attentive: on the retaining wall towards the slope is a small fountain with an oval limestone basin whose spout is a mermaid playing a flute.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Elfenauweg 92 · Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Baugruppe Elfenau · Immobilien Stadt Bern: Landwirtschaftsbetrieb Elfenau, Ausschreibung zur Neuverpachtung · Stadt Bern: Referat Barbara Hayoz zum Elfenaupark (2009) · Wikidata: Q113884707