Town scene

History of the work

In the Ländtetor on Mattenenge, where the way leads down from the Nydegg into the Matte quarter, Hans Alexander Fischer decorated a wall in 1964. The city's data call the sgraffito 'Stadtszene' (Town Scene) and place it at Mattenenge 3 and 5; on Wikimedia Commons and in Wikidata it is called 'Ländtetor'. According to Wikidata it is on the southern inner wall of the building's lower floor, is figurative, depicts the Matte quarter and belongs to the City of Bern.

According to SIKART, Fischer was born in Bern on 18 May 1916; Wikipedia also gives 1916 in its heading but 1919 in its text. He trained as a painter and restorer with the Bern firm De Quervain & Schneider and then attended the art school in Dijon, the École nationale des Beaux-Arts, training as a painter, fresco painter and graphic artist. In 1943 he founded a restoration studio in Bern, which trained restorers until the late 1970s, when Switzerland still had no school of its own for this.

Together with the canton, the city and the Burgergemeinde, Fischer drew up a first project for training workshops; the Bernische Denkmalpflege-Stiftung (Bern heritage foundation) was set up for it. A course in conservation and restoration was only created in the 1980s, at the Kunstgewerbeschule Bern. From the 1940s his firm restored more than 1,000 objects, among them figures of Bern's fountains, and documented the work in writing and photographs. From 1966 Fischer advised the Federal Commission for Monument Preservation, and in 1988 the University of Bern awarded him an honorary doctorate.

SIKART lists him as a restorer, painter and graphic artist working in mural painting, sgraffito, woodcut and illustration. Wikipedia names the wall at the Ländtetor explicitly as an example of his own artistic work. Since 1986 the firm he founded, now under another name, has had its seat in the Matte quarter. Fischer died in Jaberg on 3 July 2000. Walking through the Ländtetor, you will find the picture on the inner wall of the lower floor.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (offene Daten) · SIKART: Hans Alexander Fischer · Wikipedia (de): Hans Alexander Fischer · Wikidata: Ländtetor (Q87145923) · Wikimedia Commons: Kategorie Sgraffito Ländtetor (Hans Alexander Fischer 1964) · Wikimedia Commons: Sgraffito Ländtetor (Hans Alexander Fischer 1964)