Two Workers

History of the work

On the building at Sulgeneckstrasse 18, two unclothed men stand in two shallow, framed wall niches, frontal and rigidly upright. Each holds a heavy workpiece in front of his body: one a large fork-shaped part, the other a cylindrical piece. Letterboxes and ventilation grilles are now fitted below the niches. The City of Bern lists the group as „Zwei Arbeiter“ (Two Workers) from 1930 and gives the material as exposed-aggregate concrete.

The building belongs to the municipal electricity works, today Energie Wasser Bern. Its core is a warehouse that Eduard Rybi built in 1905. In 1929 Walter von Gunten extended it with a new building on the north side; ten years later the facade of the old part was brought into line and the hipped roof was added. The building inventory calls it an example of sober modernism that is fairly unique in Bern and mentions good sculptural decoration at the entrance, without naming the artist. The figures were made one year after the 1929 extension.

Etienne Perincioli was born on 3 October 1881 in Doccio in Piedmont. He trained at the school of applied arts in Varallo, worked as a stucco plasterer in Montreux and continued his studies in Paris in 1902 and 1903. In 1908 he came to Bern to carry out sculptural work on the Casino and the Grand Hotel Bellevue, and stayed. SIKART names art for buildings and the restoration of old architectural sculpture as his fields of work. Among his best-known works is the artificial-stone centaur of 1918 at the end of the Kirchenfeld Bridge near the Kunsthalle; he also created the Art Deco decoration of the Splendid cinema. He died in Bern on 10 March 1944. His son Marcel Perincioli also became a sculptor.

To follow Perincioli's architectural sculpture further in Bern, visit the centaur by the Kunsthalle; there you can compare his artificial-stone figure of 1918 with the two workers of 1930.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (offene Daten) · Wikipedia (de): Etienne Perincioli · SIKART Lexikon: Etienne Perincioli · Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Sulgeneckstrasse 18, 22 (Elektrizitätswerk) · Bildhauer Perincioli (Familienwebsite): Kunst am Bau · Wikimedia Commons: Foto des Werks (Ansicht)