Air ("Wulchehuus", cloud house)

History of the work

At the entrance to a school pavilion of the Bethlehemacker school on Kornweg, the wall painting 'Luft' (Air), made by Walter Linck in 1956, is painted on brickwork. The pavilion is called 'Wulchehuus'. According to a report by Bern's city government to the city parliament, the murals by Walter Linck and his wife Margrit Linck-Daepp from the 1950s are among the artworks on the school site that are to be preserved during the renovation; a water feature by Walter Linck was to be restored and rebuilt.

The school complex was built in four stages between 1952 and 1970. According to the same report, the first buildings on Kornweg are typical examples of the pavilion school, a type popular at the time; five pavilions, a gymnasium building and an upper-school building are grouped like a fan around a playground and lawns. The pavilions and the older part of the gymnasium are classified as worthy of protection in the cantonal building inventory.

Linck was born in Bern on 3 February 1903, the son of the painter Ernst Linck, and died on 3 January 1975 in Reichenbach near Zollikofen (HLS). He trained at the trade school in Bern and in the metalwork class of the school of applied arts in Zurich, and studied sculpture at the academy in Berlin until 1926, from 1922 according to the HLS, from 1921 according to Wikipedia. In 1927 he married the ceramicist Margrit Daepp; a year later the couple moved to Paris. His early commissions in Bern include the figure on the fountain at Bärenplatz.

In 1943 Linck destroyed almost all his previous work and from then on worked only with metal: first with fine, movable wire sculptures, later with large steel sculptures. From 1956 to 1957 he taught at the Werkakademie in Kassel, and in 1959 he took part in documenta 2 (Wikipedia). The wall painting on Kornweg thus dates from the years in which Linck otherwise worked mainly in metal.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (offene Daten) · Stadt Bern: Vortrag des Gemeinderats an den Stadtrat, Volksschule Bethlehemacker, Sanierung und Erweiterung · HLS: Walter Linck · SIKART: Walter Linck · Wikipedia (de): Walter Linck · Wikimedia Commons: Wandmalerei Luft (Walter Link 1956)