Female allegories (Mediating, Speaking, Listening)

History of the work

On the façade of the radio studio facing Mühlemattstrasse, above the second row of windows, are three limestone reliefs. Karl Schenk made them around 1948/49; their titles are “Das Vermitteln” (Transmitting), “Das Sprechen” (Speaking) and “Das Hören” (Listening). According to Wikimedia Commons the reliefs are each about 20 metres apart and share the same motif, but are not identical. Wikidata gives each about 120 by 120 centimetres and names a woman as the motif of each.

The three titles describe what happens in this building: here people speak, broadcast and listen. The studio was built in 1931 as a six-storey block whose front follows the curve of Mühlemattstrasse. The city’s building inventory singles out precisely this part for its power and modernity and credits the radio studio with setting the scale of the whole southern Monbijou area.

Schenk (1905–1973) was a Bernese sculptor and painter, the son of an art metalworker. At his father’s wish he trained as a gravestone carver and began to draw and paint on the side. In 1934 he went to Paris on a grant, where he met Arnold Huggler and Édouard-Marcel Sandoz, both sculptors. He returned to Bern with some 400 drawings and worked here independently. SIKART names portrait busts of senior politicians and officers as his focus; for the city’s water supply he made the mosaic “Trinkender Faun” (Drinking Faun). In the last twenty years of his life he mainly painted.

The city’s register dates the reliefs to 1949, Wikimedia Commons to 1948. Standing in front of the building, look at the three reliefs one after the other and compare how they differ. On the Schwarztorstrasse side there is also the bronze sculpture by Marcel Perincioli, the remains of an ornamental fountain from 1974.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (offene Daten) · Wikipedia (de): Karl Schenk (Künstler) · SIKART: Karl Schenk · Bauinventar Stadt Bern: Baugruppe Monbijou (Radiostudio Schwarztorstrasse 21) · Wikidata: Weibliche Allegorien (Q74292803) · Wikimedia Commons: Kalksteinrelief-Ensemble Weibliche Allegorien (Karl Schenk 1948)