Municipal Girls' School in Monbijou

About the building

With its size and colour, this long exposed-brick building dominates Sulgeneckstrasse. It has three storeys under hipped roofs; in the middle of the street front one part rises to four storeys, with a rich Neo-Renaissance doorway and a gable with a clock. The windows are grouped in threes, and there are pilasters and sgraffito decoration. The whole is strictly symmetrical.

The school was built in 1897 by the city's building department to plans by Gottlieb Streit, as the Monbijou girls' secondary school. It was the first building on the site of the former Monbijou cemetery, and with it the city began to develop that area. The new building is linked to a move: the burghers' girls' school, merged in 1880 with the girls' school of the municipality, had been housed until 1898 in a Neoclassical building on Amthausgasse and then moved to the new site in Monbijou.

The east side stands directly on the street and has shallow projecting sections; the west side has much bolder ones, and there you find a playground and a covered hall. The building inventory ranks the school among the most striking school buildings of historicism and notes that its style and rich detail express the status of a secondary school. It was altered in 1926 and 1969.

School life changed too in the 20th century. In 1957 Bern had two girls' secondary schools, Monbijou and Laubegg. In spring 1970 the city introduced mixed classes for girls and boys, and the Monbijou girls' secondary school was one of the first two schools to start. The building is a cultural property of regional importance and is listed as worthy of protection.

A detail: above the centre of the street front, look for the clock gable.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Sulgeneckstrasse 26 · Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Amthausgasse 22 (burgerliche Mädchenschule) · Stadtarchiv Bern: Volksschulen Sekundarstufe I (Verwaltungsgeschichte) · Wikimedia Commons: Städtische Mädchenschule (KGS 00726) · Wikidata: Q29651734