Viktoriaspitalkapelle

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Viktoriaspitalkapelle with green monopitch roof and red facade, seen from the station terrace.

The Roman Catholic Victoria Hospital Chapel of the Viktoria AG Bern retirement center was built in 1958 by the Ticino architect Bruno Brunoni (1906–2000).

history

Window facade of the Viktoriaspitalkapelle

The Viktoria guesthouse, built in 1868 by the architect Horace Edouard Davinet on the Schänzlihügel, became a sanatorium because of the medical care of the spa guests. The consortium of attending physicians took over the management of the Viktoria Sanatorium in 1881 and the deaconesses of Salemspital took care of the sick. In 1897 the guesthouse was expanded and a chapel was built in addition to a treatment extension. At the instigation of the doctors, the Sisters of Mercy von Ingenbohl were given the management of the house, and on June 1, 1901, the sanatorium, now called "Victoria Hospital", became the property of the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross, Ingenbohl. In 1904, the architect Davinet built the hospital's Art Nouveau wing, which still exists today. In 1958 the first ninety year old «Viktoria» was demolished and in its place the new entrance wing with bed sections, treatment rooms and a new chapel was built by Bruno Brunoni. In 1990 the provincial management of the monastery decided for economic reasons to close the Victoria Hospital and to set up a retirement and nursing home for it. The gradual conversion to a retirement and nursing home with 100 nursing beds was completed in 1995. On June 25, 2004 Pope John Paul II visited the Viktoria retirement center on the occasion of the national youth meeting on the Berner Allmend. In 2005 the Viktoria retirement center became a stock corporation and is still owned by the Ingenbohl sisters. Church services are held regularly in the chapel and cultural events are held there at monthly intervals.

Building description

Interior with the chancel seen from the gallery

The chapel is located in a cubic extension of the main building with a flat pitched pent roof on the side facing Schänzlistrasse. Daylight falls through the cassette-like concrete elements of the outer wall. In contrast to the other buildings, the gable wall on the west side is plastered in a reddish color.

Interior and artistic equipment

Visitors enter the church from the side via a corridor from the entrance area of ​​the Viktoria nursing home. Opposite the coffered side wall with the colored windows, a side gallery is connected to the organ gallery. There is a Stations of the Cross sgraffito on the back wall under the gallery. Another sgraffito on the gallery shows two hovering angels. Four glass concrete windows are let into the concrete grid side wall with the themes: Crucifixion, Mary with the baby Jesus, Annunciation and Maria Gloria. The large tapestry on the back wall of the choir with abstract rectangular motifs is, like the other works of art, by the religious Sr. Maria Raphaela, vers. Elisabeth Bürgi created. The same artist designed the glass windows of the light band under the ceiling of the south wall. A small side chapel also contains a large crucifix and a pieta, presumably copies of older originals.

organ

Chapel organ

The new organ by Bernhard Fleig, Basel, was inaugurated in 2005. The instrument has mechanical action with 9 mechanical stops and two manuals and pedal . The wind chests are designed as sliding chests.

I Manual C – d 3
Wood-covered 8th'
Reed flute 4 ′
Sesquialter / third 3 ′
II Manual C – d 3
Principal 8th'
octave 4 ′
octave 2 ′
Traverso 8 ′ (from cs' floating)
Pedal C – f 1
Sub bass 16 ′
Krummhorn 8th'
  • Coupling , playing aids: manual slide coupling II / I, pedal coupling I / P, II / P

See also

literature

  • Gabriela Hanke et al .: Catholic Bern from 1799 to 1999. A stopover . Total Roman Catholic parish of Bern and the surrounding area, Bern 1999.

Web links

Commons : Viktoriaspitalkapelle  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Report in the parish gazette, Pope visit
  2. ↑ site Sokultur: Biography of Sister M. Raphaela
  3. ↑ Chapel of the Viktoria Retirement Center, Bern in the organ directory for Switzerland and Liechtenstein . Retrieved December 11, 2019.


Coordinates: 46 ° 57 '10.7 "  N , 7 ° 27' 0.3"  E ; CH1903:  600 872  /  200209