Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter
Keywords
Erdmann Schmocker, Berchtold Weber, architectural history
Abstract
The transformation of history takes place constantly. Language changes. Political structures replace each other. Man grows through the stages of his life. When we look back we recognize the extent of the changes, the path we had to come and "the forms we walked through" in the words of Gottfried Benn. One paradigm of transformation can be found in architecture, and two Swiss author, Erdmann Schmocker and Berchtold Weber, have created a beautiful book to demonstrate such a process in the case of the Swiss city of Bern. They show us how it grew from a medieval town to the modern city. They illustrate the transformations by juxtaposing a picture of the Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen, taken in the year 1900, with an old streetcar, to one taken in 1979, this time with a modern bus. They show us maps of the city at different epochs, and we see houses and palaces torn down, replaced, altered, enlarged. We see the city grow over hundreds of years, and we watch the growth with ambiguous feelings, admiring the changes at times and deploring them at others .
Recommended Citation
Laeuchli, Samuel
(1981)
"Review: Erdmann Schmocker and Berchtold Weber, Altes Bern, neues Bern, ein Stadtbild im Wandel der Zeit. Bern: Benteli Verlag, 1979.,"
Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter: Vol. 17:
Iss.
3, Article 8.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_newsletter/vol17/iss3/8