Construction
church building in the old city of Bern, Switzerland
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Bern Minster (German: Berner Münster) is a Swiss Reformed cathedral (or minster) in the old city of Bern, Switzerland. Built in the Gothic style, its construction started in 1421. Its tower, with a height of 100.6 m (330 ft), was only completed in 1893. It is the tallest cathedral in Switzerland and is a Cultural Property of National Significance.
The Minster of Bern is located on the southern side of the Aare peninsula. The cathedral is oriented east and west like the rest of the Old City of Bern. To the north, Münstergasse runs along the side of the building. The west façade of the Münster dominates Münsterplatz. On the south side of the cathedral is the Münsterplattform.
It is a three nave basilica without a transept. The entire cathedral is 84.2 meters (276 ft) long and 33.68 m (110.5 ft) wide. The central nave is 39.37 m (129.2 ft) long by 11.10 m (36.4 ft) wide and is 20.70 m (67.9 ft) high. The two side naves are very similar in dimensions, the north nave is 52.50 m (172.2 ft) long, while the southern one is slightly longer at 52.72 m (173.0 ft). They are both 6.45 m (21.2 ft) wide and 10.40 m (34.1 ft) high. The altar house and choir together are 25.20 m (82.7 ft) long, 10.92 m (35.8 ft) wide and 19.40 m (63.6 ft) high. The cathedral has a single tower in the west, which is 100.60 m (330.1 ft) high. Below the tower, there is a 10.15 m (33.3 ft) long by 10.46 m (34.3 ft) wide, tower hall.
There are a total of ten bays in the building. The central nave has five of these bays. Each of the side naves has two bays, with side chapels built against the exterior walls. The last bay is within the choir.
The central nave walls are supported by fourteen flying buttresses. Each buttress starts at a decorated column which rises above the roof of the side naves and side chapels. The buttresses rise at an angle of 43° 30’. The lower side of the buttresses are decorated with egg-shaped cut outs, with vesica piscis and spandrel designs.
The majority of the building is built from local sandstone. The vaults are built of brick. In the 18th century, limestone sheathing was added to the pillars. Most of the sandstone came from a quarry at Ostermundigen. Additional material came from three other quarries, each with differing colour and quality. The various stone types were used more or less randomly throughout the entire building. The pillar bases, capitals, windows and sculptures are all from the highest quality, blue sandstone from the Gurten quarry, south of Bern. During reconstruction projects in the 19th and 20th centuries, several other sandstone types were used.
The three west entrances of the cathedral are located at the back of three large portals. Each of the portals is a different height and differently shaped and decorated. The central portal is decorated with a series of statues that represent the Last Judgment in Christian theology.
The bell tower grew in several stages. The lower, rectangular tower was the original tower. The octagonal upper tower was added in the 19th century. The lower tower is flanked by two round towers and eight pillars. To the north and south, it is supported by buttresses that rise above the northern and southern main portals. The west face of the tower rises above a gallery above the central, west portal. The east face is supported by the central nave. The decoration on the western face of the tower has changed several times over the centuries. The lower, western window is quite short but wide.
The upper section of the rectangular tower rises above a second gallery. It has a 12 m (39 ft) high, but narrow window directly above the gallery. The decorations of this section are the work of two master stonemasons, Erhart Küng and Burkhart Engelberg This section shows much less variation in the design as it was built completely under the direction of these two men. The original tower was capped with a pyramidal roof, elements of which still exist.
The two small, stairway towers were built as part of the tower, but were completely rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The lower octagonal tower was built in the 16th century. It has eight, round arch windows. Two hexagonal staircase towers are built outside the tower near the northeast and southeast windows. The small towers are completely self-supporting.
The upper octagonal tower was built in the 19th century in a gothic style. However, some of the ornamentation is based on early 15th century designs and stands out against the 16th century lower octagonal tower.
The first church on this site probably was a small chapel (Leutkirche) built during the founding of Bern (1191). The first church of Bern was a romanesque building which was probably built between 1155 and 1160, but is first mentioned in 1224. This church was outside the city walls, near what is now Kreuzgasse. The nave of the first church was about 16.5 m (54 ft) long by 6 m (20 ft) wide.
In 1276, Bern broke away from the parish of Köniz to become an independent parish. For this new role, a larger church would have been necessary. It appears likely that construction on the second church began immediately. However, it isn't mentioned until 1289 in writings of Bishop Benvenutus von Eugubio. This new church was a three nave building, with a length of 29.5 m (97 ft), a width of 24.5 m (80 ft) of which the middle nave was 11.1 m (36 ft) wide. The bell tower was located in the middle of the northern side nave, and filled part of the central nave.
The 1356 Basel earthquake caused extensive damage to the church walls, arches, and tower. Repairs proceeded slowly. The choir was rebuilt in 1359 and the roof was rebuilt in 1378–80. During the early stages of construction of the Minster, this church was still being used. The nave was finally demolished between 1449–51 and the tower remained until 1493.
By the 15th century, Bern had expanded and become a major city-state north of the Alps. To celebrate their growing power and wealth, plans were made to build a new and larger church. On 11 March 1421 construction began on the cathedral under the direction of the Strasbourg master builder Matthäus Ensinger, who had already built three other cathedrals. During construction, services were held in the old chapel while the new cathedral was built up around it. During the 1440s the unvaulted choir was used for services after a simple roof was built and stained glass windows were installed. After the Old Zürich War 1440–1446 the nave of the old chapel was removed and work began on the nave and west end, under the chief masons Stefan Hurder and then Niklaus Birenvogt.
In 1483 Erhart Küng (who carved the statues of the Last Judgement) became the master mason. Under his direction the nave walls were raised and the tower was built to the lower octagon. Construction on the lower rectangular tower began in 1481 or 1483 and continued until 1489. The upper rectangular section was built between 1489 and 1518. Following Küng's death in 1506, Peter Pfister led the construction and finished the vaulting in the choir. The lower octagonal tower and roof were finished between 1518 and 1521. In 1571 Daniel Heintz was brought in as master mason to finish vaulting the nave and finish the work. The central nave was finished by 1575 and at this point, construction stopped for almost three centuries. The organ was installed in three stages between 1727 and 1783. The bell tower, with the largest bell in Switzerland, wasn't completed until 1893.
In 1515, Thomas Wyttenbach, Huldrych Zwingli's teacher, became a priest at the Minster of Bern. In the latter part of Wyttenbach's stay in Bern, a local priest, Berchtold Haller, lived with him. Around the time that Wyttenbach left Bern in 1520 to become a Reformer of his birthplace, Biel, Haller was elected a canon of the cathedral. In 1521, he became friends with Zwingli in Zurich and began to preach more Protestant sermons. In February, 1522, two Fastnacht plays were given at Bern, which attacked the Catholic Church. Due to the rising reformist sentiment, in June 1523, the city council ordered that the words of the Bible should be preached. By 20 November of that year, the nuns left the convent in Bern. But in 1524 the priest Meier, who sympathized with Haller, was compelled to leave Bern. That left Haller the only Protestant among the priests. Then, on 7 April 1525, the council issued a new decree restoring the Catholic worship, though with a few changes.
In the following year, the plague came to Bern. The deaths due to the plague converted many of the citizens to the Reformation. In 1527 the Reformed party gained the control of the great council, and it ordered that the new faith should be preached. Still there was a conflict about the mass, as some congregations still observed it. It was decided that there should be a religious disputation at Bern, on 6 January 1528, to settle these questions.
On 27 January 1528, the council ordered that throughout the city, all masses should be stopped and all icons should be cast out. On 7 February 1528, it ordered the same for the whole canton. In April 1528, a Protestant service was first celebrated in the Minster. Today's congregation forms part of the Reformed Churches of the Canton Bern-Jura-Solothurn.
Over the main portal is one of the most complete Late Gothic sculpture collections in Europe. This collection represents the Christian belief in a Last Judgment where the wicked will be separated from the righteous. This sculpture shows the wicked naked on the right, while the righteous stand clothed in white on the left. In the center is Justice, with Saints and the wise and foolish virgins around her. In the centre stands Michael the Archangel with a raised sword.
The sculptures of the Last Judgement were the only statues in the Minster to survive the iconoclasm of the Protestant Reformation. The 47 large free-standing statues are replicas (the originals are in Bern History Museum), and the 170 smaller figures are all original. The Last Judgement was the work of one sculptor, Erhard Küng from Stadtlohn, Westphalia, which gives the collection a unity of design. The Justice sculpture is the only one that was done by another artist. It is signed by Daniel Heintz, who was the master builder after 1571. The rest of the statues were carved some time between 1460 and 1501, most likely between 1460 and 1480.
The trumeau to each side and between the doors has thirteen life-size figures. The middle figure and the two figures on each side of the door are raised by about half their height above the other figures. The figures on the left of the door represent the five Foolish Virgins while the ones on the right are the Wise Virgins. Below the outer two Wise Virgins and the two Foolish Virgins, two faces peer out of the wall on each side. On the wise side, they represent the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. On the foolish side, they represent Zephaniah and, maybe, Isaiah. In the center, between the two doors, is Justice flanked by two angels. Below Justice and the angels is a scroll commemorating the laying of the cornerstone in 1421.
The archivolt features three rows of figures. The inner two rows are attached to the wall and lie at an angle which follows the curve of the portal. The outer, third row features statues that stand upright on individual platforms. The inner row contains five angels with the instruments of the Passion. The second row contains eight Old Testament prophets. The outer row is Jesus, Mary and the Apostles, including John the Baptist and Paul, but not Judas Iscariot.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Bern Minster”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.