Orbit

History of the work

On the lawn behind the National Library, towards Bernastrasse, a slender construction of dark iron rises well above head height. Several long, narrow bands wrap around a vertical mast in open loops that meet again at the bottom and at the top; a small ball sits at the very tip. The City of Bern's inventory dates the work to 1972 and gives iron as its material.

The form matches what the Swiss artists' lexicon SIKART records about Linck's late work: in the 1960s and 1970s he carried his ideas about movement over into large pieces in which staggered loops make a circuit visible. As an example SIKART names a work titled „Orbite“ from 1970 to 1972 at the Swiss Embassy in Washington. Whether the Bern sculpture is a version of the same design, and who commissioned it, is not stated in the sources consulted.

The building behind it was built between 1929 and 1931 as the Swiss National Library (then called Landesbibliothek). Following a competition held in 1927, the architects Alfred Oeschger, Josef Kaufmann and Emil Hostettler built it together. The City of Bern's building inventory regards it as an early, pioneering achievement of modern architecture (Neues Bauen) in Bern; since 2007 the institution has been called the National Library.

Walter Linck was born in Bern in 1903; the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland and SIKART give 3 February, the German-language Wikipedia 5 February. His father was the painter Ernst Linck. He trained at the trade school in Bern, in the metalwork class of the School of Applied Arts in Zurich and at the academy in Berlin. At first he made figures and portraits, among them, in 1935, the returning mercenary on the Bärenplatz fountain. In 1943 he destroyed almost all of his earlier work; according to SIKART he sank it in the Aare. From then on he worked only in metal, from 1952 mainly with movable constructions of wire and spring steel. In 1959 he took part in documenta II in Kassel, in 1966 in the Venice Biennale. He died on 3 January 1975 in Reichenbach near Zollikofen.

If you want to see both, compare „Orbit“ with the mercenary figure on the Bärenplatz: two works by the same sculptor, separated by almost four decades and by the break of 1943.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (offene Daten) · SIKART Lexikon: Walter Linck · Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz: Walter Linck · Wikipedia (de): Walter Linck · Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Hallwylstrasse 15 (Landesbibliothek) · Wikimedia Commons: Foto des Werks (Ansicht)