A museum quarter with international appeal is to be in Bern.
A feasibility study by the canton, city and burger community of Bern now shows for the first time how the various museums and institutions in the Kirchenfeld district can be linked to form an educational and cultural area. In addition to a substantive cooperation, a joint entrance as well as a new public museum park in the middle of the facilities are planned.
For the cultural and tourist canton of Berne, the Museumsquartier is a unique opportunity which the participating institutions would like to promote together. An architecture competition will be announced in the coming year.
The museum district of Bern invites you to create your own events. The goal is to bring the neighborhood to life and share ideologies, moments, interests for the good development of the society interested in the cultural environment of the city of Bern.
Der Bund
A museum district with international appeal is to be built in the church field in Bern. Common access for seven cultural institutions and a public museum park are planned. Estimated costs: maximum CHF 250 million.
The canton, city and burger community of Bern presented a feasibility study at a media conference in Bern on Monday. The Museum Quarter would include the Bern Historical Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Museum of Communication, the Alpine Museum, the Kunsthalle, the Swiss Rifle Museum and the Yehudi Menuhin Forum.
So that the various institutions can be experienced as a “unit”, there should be a common entrance at Helvetiaplatz, which leads through an underground passage to a visitor center and museum shop below the Historical Museum.
From a spacious lobby, visitors can access the public museum park behind the Historical Museum. Other museums and institutions can be reached from the park, which is also to serve as an event location. The feasibility study envisages several design variants.
The adjacent national library, the city archive, the media library of the PHBern University of Teacher Education and the Kirchenfeld grammar school are also taken into account in the planning.
Museum density as a
"stroke of luck"
Bern City Mayor Alec von Graffenried spoke of a "stroke of luck". The proximity of a total of eleven institutions around Helvetiaplatz is unique in this density. The idea of a museum district is therefore not a "megalomaniacal" prestige project, but rather pragmatic and sustainable.
From the perspective of the canton of Bern, it is also a “groundbreaking project”, as government councilor Christine Häsler emphasized. There are great opportunities for networking not only from a cultural-political perspective, but also for tourism. City tourism is booming and this also affects the surrounding area.
NNZ
The canton, city and burger community of Bern presented a feasibility study at a media conference in Bern on Monday. The Museum Quarter would include the Bern Historical Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Museum of Communication, the Alpine Museum, the Kunsthalle, the Swiss Rifle Museum and the Yehudi Menuhin Forum.
Hoped for a million visits a year
So that the various institutions can be experienced as a “unit”, there should be a common entrance at Helvetiaplatz, which leads through an underground passage to a visitor center and museum shop below the Historical Museum. From a spacious lobby, visitors can access the public museum park behind the Historical Museum. Further museums can be reached from the park, which is also to serve as an event location. The adjacent National Library is considered in the planning as a "research and education zone".
Closer cooperation should bring added value to everyone involved. The authorities expect the number of visitors to the Bern museums to rise to around one million a year. For comparison: Across Switzerland, just over 13 million museum visits are registered each year.
Architecture competition in 2020
According to the first rough calculations, the project is likely to cost a maximum of around CHF 250 million - spread over the canton, city and burger community of Bern, as well as other sponsors. The renovation of the Historical Museum and the establishment of a depot are necessary anyway. According to the media release, this alone costs around CHF 100 million.
The feasibility study is now to be examined together with the cultural institutions and substantiated in terms of content. An architecture competition is scheduled for autumn / winter 2020. Dieter Bogner is the author of the feasibility study. The Austrian art historian and museum planner developed the museum district in Vienna and is “one of the world's most renowned specialists in this field,” the authorities write.