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The Käfigturm is a
Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
tower in
Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...
,
Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
. It is part of the
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...
Cultural
World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...
of the
Old City of Bern The Old City () is the medieval city center of Bern, Switzerland. Built on a narrow hill bordered on three sides by the river Aare, its compact layout has remained essentially unchanged since its construction during the twelfth to the fifteenth ...
and the tower is a Cultural Property of National Significance. The original tower was built as a gate house during the second expansion of Bern in 1256. The tower was demolished in 1640 and completely rebuilt immediately thereafter.


History

The first tower, which stood on the site of the present Käfigturm, was built in 1256 during the second expansion of Bern. Over the nearly seventy years since the construction of the
Zytglogge The Zytglogge (Bernese German: ; ) is a landmark medieval tower in Bern, Switzerland. Built in the early 13th century, it has served the city as a guard tower, prison, clock tower, centre of urban life and civic memorial. Despite the many red ...
tower and the first city walls, Bern had expanded westward along the
Aare The Aare () or Aar () is the main tributary of the High Rhine (its discharge even exceeds that of the latter at their confluence) and the longest river that both rises and ends entirely within Switzerland. Its total length from its source to i ...
peninsula. In 1255, construction began on a second set of walls, which required a new gatehouse. The new tower was very similar to the original Zytglogge. It was built as a hollow square and most of the back of the tower was open to the city. It had a small, flat platform at the top and a gate that opened onto the bridge over the
moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...
. Following the third city expansion in 1345, the tower became a second line of defense. In 1405, a fire destroyed most of the city of Bern. After the fire, the town's prison was moved from the Zytglogge tower west to the Käfigturm, which was then known as the ''nüwe kefyen''. The name was quickly shortened to ''kebie'', from which the name Käfigturm (literally ''cage or jail tower'') came. After the armory tower was converted into a women's prison, the Käfigturm was known as ''Mannenkefi''. By 1433, the tower was also serving as a watch and signal tower in addition to a prison. By 1470, it had been modified with niches on the city side and
merlon A merlon is the solid, upright section of a battlement (a crenellated parapet) in medieval architecture or fortifications. Merlons are sometimes pierced by narrow, vertical embrasures, or tooth-like slits designed for observation and fire. The sp ...
s around the top platform. At some point between 1470 and 1549, a
hip roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downward to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope, with variants including Tented roof, tented roofs and others. Thus, a hipped roof has no gables or other ve ...
was added to the top of the tower. According to a drawing by Gregorius Sickinger, the original tower stood about east of its current location. On 19 May 1638, a commission was appointed by the city council to replace the dilapidated ''Mannerkefi'' tower. The old tower was demolished in 1640 and on 29 May 1641, the town council approved plans to build a new tower which would stand slightly to the west of the old tower. In April 1642, one of the chief builders, Joseph Plepp, died. The other chief builder, Antoni Graber, took full control of the project. On 20 January 1643, the exterior work was complete and Graber handed the project over to master carpenter Hans Stähli to finish the roof and the interior woodwork.Hofer, pg. 130 By the spring of 1644, most of the interior work was finished. During the planning phase, the commission determined that the new Käfigturm would not be large enough to close the several prisons around Bern and move them all into the new tower. In February 1641, the town council acquired the house of the recently deceased widow of Hans Gunier, which lay just south of the new tower. The house was rebuilt from the ground up as part of the prison by Antoni Graber. Once Graber finished the exterior work on the house, the interior was built in 1643/44 by Niclaus Bovet.Hofer, pg. 131 During the winter of 1690-91, the first modifications were made to the tower. A clock face was added on the front and back of the middle of the tower. The decorative
Corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a wikt:superincumbent, bearing weight, a type of bracket (architecture), bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in t ...
s and
triglyph Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric frieze are ...
s and a window in the middle section of the tower were all removed to add the clock. The current clock tower bell was added to the tower in 1643. The history of the bell is a bit unusual. When the town decided to add a bell, the
Thirty Years War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine, or disease, whil ...
was still raging in Europe. Due to the war, it was very difficult to buy metal to cast a bell. So, the town council chose to buy a bell that had been captured near
Vesoul Vesoul ( ) is a Communes of France, commune in the predominantly rural Haute-Saône department, of which it is the Prefectures in France, prefecture, or capital, in the Regions of France, region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté located in eastern Franc ...
and was being shipped as war booty to
Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...
. Until the end of the 17th Century, the bell was struck by hand. The mechanism to ring the bells automatically was installed in 1691-92. The tower remained virtually unchanged over the following centuries, though the attached house was renovated and gained two additional stories between 1794 and 1805. In 1903 and 1933 the west facade of the tower was renovated. The east facade was renovated in 1906. To ease traffic congestion, a second walkway was cut through the house north of the tower in 1886. Then, in 1902-3 a large gate was built through the ground floor cell block of the prison. The 60 to 70 prisoners that had been housed in the tower, were moved to the district prison north of the main post office building in 1897. Removing the prisoners and demolishing the cells changed the role of the tower. It became an archive tower and stored the state archives of the canton and the records of the supreme court.Hofer, pg. 132 For a time a portion of the basement served as a warehouse of the adjacent Garnier wine shop.History of the Käfigturm
accessed 7 September 2011
After minor renovations in 1906 on the east facade and on the west facade in 1933, in 1976 the Grand Council of the Canton of Bern approved a total renovation. The renovation included an expansion into an information and exhibition center. The information center finally opened on 19 April 1980 and remained open for the next 15 years. After the information center closed it was temporarily used as a commercial library and sporadically hosted exhibitions, private parties or meetings. Eventually, the federal government established the tower as a meeting place for the Polit-Forum (Political Forum of the Confederation) an organization of people who were interested in discussing politics.


Tower site

The tower is a square with sides. The portal through the tower is and the base is thick. The bottom of the roof is above the street, and the pennant at the top of the tower is high. Most of the tower is built out of sandstone.Hofer, pg. 133 The roof features five early
baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
towers. The four smaller towers are exact copies of each other and are placed at the centers of the four sides of the tower. The central tower is larger, but retains all the features of the four smaller towers. They all feature a pair of rectangular windows, a copper-plated pointed roof and a pennant. The clock works are built into the attic floor of the tower.Hofer, pg. 134-8 On the east side, in the corner of the 1641 neighboring building and the tower, is a three sided stair house which was built in 1903. The neighboring building is four stories tall above a round top portal. The current appearance of this prison building comes from 1805–06, except for the portal which was run through the old ground floor prison in 1903.


References


External links


Käfigturm website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kafigturm Tourist attractions in Bern Old City (Bern) Cultural property of national significance in the canton of Bern Buildings and structures in Bern