Bernerhof

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
North facade

The Bernerhof is a former luxury hotel in Bern . It is located at Bundesgasse  3, between the Bundeshaus and the Kleine Schanze . The hotel was built from 1856 to 1858 according to plans by Jakob Friedrich Studer and Johann Carl Dähler. Financial problems after the renovation in 1907/08 and especially after the First World War led to the cessation of the hotel in 1923 and the takeover of the building by the federal government. Since then, the Bernerhof has served as the headquarters of the Federal Department of Finance . In 2004/05 the building was extensively renovated and received representative rooms for state receptions on the ground floor.

history

hotel

From right: the Bernerhof next to the oldest part of the Federal Palace (1858)
The Bernerhof on a postcard from 1858

In 1848 the Federal Assembly chose Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. For their central accommodation, the "Federal City Hall", today's west wing of the Federal Palace, was built between 1852 and 1857 under the direction of Jakob Friedrich Studer. This also created the need for a hotel for high demands. Jean Kraft, who ran the Hotel Krone on Gerechtigkeitsgasse , bought the building site to the west of the Federal City Hall from the city of Bern for 37,000 francs . The Obere Marzilitor, which was built between 1622 and 1624, was a part of the small hill of the city fortifications, the demolition of which had already been decided.

Kraft gave Jakob Friedrich Studer, who was also busy building the Federal City Hall, and his competitor Johann Carl Dähler the contract to plan the construction of the Hotel Bernerhof. The site manager was Joseph Charles Bardy. The construction work began in 1856, the cost of which amounted to 550,000 francs. The Bernerhof was the first hotel in Switzerland to have central heating . On January 1, 1859, the Hotel Bernerhof opened, with 123 rooms with 185 beds. The first banquet was held on November 12, 1858, on the occasion of the opening of the Red Bridge . Kraft closed the Hotel Krone in 1859 and transferred the hotel patent to the Bernerhof. He originally wanted to name the new building Hôtel de la Couronne ( French for Hotel Krone), which is why he had a corresponding symbol carved into the stone above the main entrance. In the end, however, he decided on the “more democratic” name Bernerhof.

The Bernerhof in 1908

In 1866 the hotel was expanded to include two covered garden terraces on the south side, and in 1875 a one-story wing building each on the north side on the left and right. The sons of Charles Kraft, who took over the hotel after his death, had a renovation project worked out in 1907. The verandas on the south side were to be extended to form a hall. In addition, the side wings on the north side were to be raised by three storeys and provided with a mansard roof. After an objection by the management of the federal buildings, which feared an impairment of the lighting conditions in the Bundeshaus West, the extension of the veranda on the southeast side was not carried out. During the one-year renovation phase, the hotel also underwent numerous changes inside. The layout of the common rooms on the ground floor changed fundamentally. 162 rooms with 220 beds were new.

The main competitor was the Hotel Bellevue Palace, opened in 1865 on Inselgasse (today's Kochergasse ). The federal authorities preferred none of the houses, but instead distributed state events and New Year's dinners evenly with the diplomatic corps. Numerous prominent people stayed at the Bernerhof. These included the Russian Tsarina Marija Alexandrovna and the French Emperor Napoleon III. , the Siamese King Chulalongkorn , the British King Edward VII , the American President Ulysses S. Grant as well as numerous representatives of business, art and culture. The last social highlight in the Bernerhof was the banquet on the occasion of the state visit of the German Emperor Wilhelm II in September 1912.

Japanese delegations were also guests several times: in 1867 the first official Japanese delegation in Switzerland; then, in 1873, the Iwakura mission . As a reference to these historic visits, the 8th round of negotiations on the free trade agreement between Switzerland and Japan was held in the Bernerhof in September 2008 .

Theodor Kocher , later Nobel Prize winner, operated on his private patients in the Bernerhof before he had his own private hospital built in 1904/05.

administration

Because of the renovation, the Bernerhof had already been enfeoffed with CHF 600,000. The outbreak of the First World War meant that most of the guests stayed away and the owners had to borrow another 600,000 francs. In 1923, the managing director Ernst Rudolf Kraft died, leaving his widow Olga no choice but to sell the Bernerhof to the federal government for 2.9 million francs. The Directorate for Federal Buildings saw this as a good opportunity to get a new administrative building relatively inexpensively. Initially it was planned that the Federal Political Department should move in here. After a renovation, however, the Federal Department of Finance finally moved into the building in 1924 .

The new use of the Bernerhof required major structural interventions inside, which cost a total of 450,000 francs. On the upper floors, the rooms were converted so that the offices can be entered from the central atrium. Room allocations and accesses were changed, most of the sanitary facilities were removed and the salons on the ground floor were subdivided. The Bernerhof was extensively renovated in 2004/05. The salons were restored so that they can again be used for state receptions. A new subdivision of the office space and the expansion of the top floor made it possible to optimize the use of space. In total, the building offers space for 260 workplaces.

literature

  • Monica Bilfinger: The Bernerhof in Bern . Ed .: Society for Swiss Art History. Swiss art guide, volume 770 , series 77.Bern 2005, ISBN 3-85782-770-X .

Web links

Commons : Bernerhof  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Monica Bilfinger: The Bernerhof in Bern, pp. 5–6
  2. ↑ Monica Bilfinger: The Bernerhof in Bern, pp. 6-10
  3. ↑ Monica Bilfinger: The Bernerhof in Bern, p. 11
  4. ↑ Monica Bilfinger: The Bernerhof in Bern, pp. 20–21
  5. ↑ Monica Bilfinger: The Bernerhof in Bern, pp. 22-23
  6. ↑ Monica Bilfinger: The Bernerhof in Bern, pp. 27–28
  7. ↑ Patrick Ziltener: Handbook Switzerland-Japan. P. 934
  8. ↑ How Theodor Kocher operated in the hotel in 1903 . In: Unipress No. 93, 1997, University of Bern, pp. 21–24.
  9. ↑ Monica Bilfinger: The Bernerhof in Bern, pp. 32–33
  10. ↑ Federal Department of Finance, Der Bernerhof: From Nobel Hotel to the Headquarters of the EFD , accessed on August 6, 2018.
  11. ↑ Monica Bilfinger: The Bernerhof in Bern, pp. 33–36

Coordinates: 46 ° 56 '46.4 "  N , 7 ° 26' 29.8"  E ; CH1903:  600226  /  199458