Stadttheater Bern

About the building

On Kornhausplatz the Stadttheater projects a massive central block far in front of the main facade. Half-columns with Ionic capitals on tall pedestals rise through several storeys, with three entrances below and three French windows above. Busts of Mozart, Schiller and Shakespeare sit in broken pediments, and some of the rich Neo-Baroque decoration has an allegorical meaning. Behind this front lie the entrance hall and the foyer.

For about a hundred years Bern had staged its theatre in the Hôtel de Musique on Theaterplatz. When the lease there ran out, the Berner Stadttheater company was founded in 1896. A competition in 1897 for a new building on the site of the old riding school drew 23 entries but no first prize; two second prizes went to René von Wurstemberger of Bern and to Kuder & Müller of Zurich. The theatre was built to Wurstemberger's plans, from 1899 to 1903 according to the building inventory. It opened on 25 September 1903 with Richard Wagner's 'Tannhäuser', preceded by a festival play by Joseph Victor Widmann in which the figure of Berna also appeared.

Inside, the typical sequence of entrance hall, grand staircase and foyer survives, as does most of the auditorium with its richly decorated proscenium. The ceiling painting 'Les harmonies' is by Ernest Biéler (1903), and the murals in the staircase by Karl Walser (1941/43). The city of Bern has owned the building and its contents since 1914.

An extension under Schüttestrasse was built in 1966–1969. In the early 1980s the building envelope was restored, the stage house rebuilt and the orchestra pit enlarged; the building inventory gives 1981–1984, the city 1982–1984. From 2014 to 2017 a full renovation followed in stages, at a total cost of about 50.7 million francs. Stage technology and public areas were renewed, and in the entrance hall three glass doors now supplement the heavy oak doors so that in the evening the theatre's light falls out onto the square. Today the opera, drama and ballet of Bühnen Bern, as the institution has been called since the 2021/22 season, perform here.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Kornhausplatz 20 · Hochbau Stadt Bern: Gesamtsanierung Stadttheater Bern (Bauflyer, September 2017) · Wikipedia (de): Bühnen Bern · Wikipedia (en): Bern Theatre · Wikidata: Q869926