Pelican

History of the work

West of the building at Huberstrasse 30 in Holligen stands an ornamental stone fountain topped by a bronze pelican. It was made in 1956 by the Geneva sculptor Willy Georges Vuilleumier. Today the house belongs to the city's Schlossmatt centre for youth and family.

The institution is old. According to an overview by the city archives, it began in 1858 as an emergency shelter in the Marzili, housing people who had lost their homes but also abandoned children. In 1899 it became the Notasyl (emergency asylum) on Besenscheuerweg, later Tscharnerstrasse, and in 1912 the youth home for children and young people under 16. Because the rooms there were no longer adequate, the municipality decided in 1951 on a new building on the Schlossgut estate in Holligen; the archive gives Huberstrasse 20 as its address. The new home opened on 1 December 1954, two years before the pelican. After a competition in 1980 it was rebuilt and reopened in September 1985 under the old field name Schlossmatt.

Vuilleumier was born on 11 September 1898 in Châtelaine near Geneva and died in Geneva on 8 November 1983. His place of citizenship was Tramelan in the Bernese Jura. He trained at the École des arts industriels in Geneva; according to the French-language Wikipedia he worked in Paris for about two decades from 1923, including in the studio of Léon Leyritz, and showed his first works at the 1925 International Exhibition of Decorative Arts. In 1949 he founded the cantonal art school in Valais together with the painter Fred Fay and taught there for 23 years.

SIKART names figures, portraits and animals as his subjects. Several animal fountains by him stand in western Switzerland, such as the eagle fountain in Sion of 1950 and a penguin fountain at a Geneva school. On site, take a look at the bird enthroned above the water.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (offene Daten) · SIKART: Willy Georges Vuilleumier · Wikipedia (fr): Willy Vuilleumier · Stadtarchiv Bern: Geschichte des Jugendheims · Wikidata: Brunnen Schlossmatt · Wikimedia Commons: Brunnen Schlossmatt