Bern is planning a museum quarter
A museum quarter is to be built in Bern. The canton, city and Burgergemeinde Bern have now presented a feasibility study.
The various museums and institutions in the Kirchenfeld district are to be networked to form an educational and cultural area. Among other things, a common entrance and a new public museum park in the center of the facilities are planned for this purpose. An architectural competition is to be announced in the coming year.
"With this project, we have a unique opportunity for Bern to have a museum quarter of the greatest charisma," said Bern's mayor Alec von Graffenried at the presentation of the feasibility study. The implementation of the plans would create a cultural quarter of international standard, but also a place with a high quality of stay for the people of Bern.
Part of the Museum Quarter would be the Bern History Museum, the Bern Natural History Museum, the Museum of Communication, the Alpine Museum, the Kunsthalle, the Swiss Shooting Museum and the Yehudi Menuhin Forum. In addition, the National Library, the Media Library of the PHBern, the City Archives of Bern and the Kirchenfeld High School are included in these plans. The cultural institutions, which are located close to each other but today appear separately, are to be connected in terms of content as well as space.
The author of the feasibility study now presented is Dieter Bogner, who also developed the Museumsquartier Wien. In order for the institutions to be experienced as a unit, there is to be a common entrance to the MuseumsQuartier. It is to be at ground level from Helvetiaplatz through a passage under the castle building of the Bernisches Historisches Museum. There, a visitor center for all participating institutions is planned, for example with joint ticket sales and a museum store.
Visitors are guided from the visitor center through a large reception hall into the public museum park and from there into the various museums. According to the study, the Museum Quarter is bordered to the south by the Swiss National Library and the Kirchenfeld High School. An architectural competition is to be announced in the fall/winter of 2020.
Costs of up to CHF 250 million
According to initial rough calculations, the Museum Quarter will cost a maximum of around CHF 250 million, according to a joint statement by the canton, city and Burgergemeinde Bern. A large part of these investments will be profitable due to the planned uses or will be compensated by the elimination of other rental costs. The renovation of the old building of the Historical Museum and the construction of a depot for about 100 million would be incurred anyway.
The initiators assume that the Museum Quarter will increase the attractiveness of the canton of Bern as a tourist destination. The number of visitors to Bern's museums is expected to rise to around one million per year, they add. In Switzerland as a whole, there are around 13 million museum visits per year. (ah)
