Bern, Old Town

The old town of Bern occupies the bend of a peninsula that the Aare almost entirely encloses. Duke Berthold V of Zähringen founded the city here in 1191; the Cronica de Berno gives that date. The whole has been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1983, under criterion (iii), and ranks among the Swiss cultural properties of national importance. What is protected is not a series of isolated monuments but an entire urban fabric, held together by its continuity as much as by its buildings.

On 14 May 1405 a fire carried the city away. The rebuilding was done in Bern sandstone, the molasse quarried nearby, and from this comes the unity of tone in the centre: façades, arcades and window surrounds all belong to the same material. The date of 1405 therefore marks less a destruction than a change of state — the town of wood became a town of stone, and has remained one. The sandstone still gives the centre its unmistakable colour today.

Three elements organise the reading of this centre. The arcades first: more than six kilometres of covered galleries run along the streets at ground-floor level. Then the fountains, dating from the 16th century, which raise painted allegorical figures in the middle of the roadway. And finally the Zytglogge, whose first function was that of a city gate, rebuilt around 1218-1220 and restored in 1771: its tower, at 540.5 metres above sea level, carries a 16th-century astronomical clock, and its carillon starts three minutes before the hour.

The cathedral, the Münster, was begun in 1421 and work continued until the end of the 16th century; its spire reaches 100 metres. The inscribed perimeter remains modest in size: reference data give 91.86 hectares. At that scale the city can be crossed on foot from end to end, and the interest lies as much in the runs of arcades as in the notable buildings they connect — here the continuity of the built fabric is part of the listed object.

Why this place is remarkable

What distinguishes Bern is the coherence of the whole rather than an accumulation of separate pieces. After the fire of 14 May 1405 the city was rebuilt in a single material, the local sandstone, on a site the Aare closes on almost every side. The result is a centre where more than six kilometres of arcades, 16th-century fountains and a clock tower inherited from a city gate form a continuous fabric: it is this ensemble, and not any single building, that the 1983 inscription recognises under criterion (iii).

History and origin

The history of the place tightens around two dates. In 1191 Duke Berthold V of Zähringen founded the city in the bend of the Aare. On 14 May 1405 a fire carried off the wooden town, and the rebuilding imposed Bern sandstone, fixing the colour of the centre for centuries. Between the two rose the Zytglogge: originally a city gate, rebuilt around 1218-1220, restored in 1771, and fitted in the 16th century with the astronomical clock that gives it its name today.