Jeu d'eau (Water Play)

History of the work

At the entrance to the Bethlehemacker schoolyard, opposite the school building at Kornweg 109, stands a painted structure of iron and stone through which water flows. Walter Linck designed it. The building inventory calls it a decorative fountain mobile and, like the city's register, dates it to 1955; the records of the Foundation of the Swiss Sculpture Exhibition give 1954.

According to those records, which the University of Bern has made available online, the kinetic water play was shown in 1954 at the first Swiss Sculpture Exhibition in Biel. The Bern city council then bought it and had it set up at Bethlehemacker primary school. Linck wanted it, the records say, to take up the play and movement of the children in the schoolyard, encourage them to play on and show them very simple mechanical processes. The water play also became a flagship of the exhibition: press cuttings in the archive document reports as far away as the USA, for instance in “The Citizen” of Searcy, Arkansas, on 9 October 1954.

The school itself was designed by Oskar and Claire Rufer. Hans and Gret Reinhard had won the 1951 competition but stood down in favour of the Rufers' third-placed project. Between 1952 and 1959 five similar pavilions were built, slightly fanned out around a schoolyard. Linck also painted four murals at the entrances here: Earth and Water (1953), Air (1956) and Fire (1959).

Linck, born in Bern in 1903 and died in 1975, had destroyed almost all his figurative work in 1943 and afterwards worked only in metal. According to SIKART, he designed several kinetic water plays and fountains in 1954/55. In the first stage of the renovation and extension of the school, the water play was restored, repainted and given a new water supply. Standing in front of it, you can watch what moves on the painted parts when the water is running.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (offene Daten) · Wikipedia (de): Walter Linck · SIKART: Walter Linck (Michael Baumgartner) · HLS: Walter Linck · Universität Bern, Things that Matter (Omeka): Walter Linck, Fontaine/Brunnen/Kinetisches Wasserspiel (1954) · Universität Bern, Things that Matter (Omeka): Presseausschnitt zu Walter Linck, Fontaine (1954) · Bauinventar Stadt Bern: Kornweg 101–111 · Bauinventar Stadt Bern: Baugruppe Schulhaus Bethlehemacker · Wikidata: Zierbrunnen-Mobile (Q55485102) · Wikimedia Commons: Brunnenspiel Bethlehemackerschulhaus (Walter Linck 1955)