Christopher Aebi
The Journey of the Sandstone

The Bernese Sandstone has been Bern’s main building material for many centuries, shaping and defining the city like no other. It is estimated that about one point five million square meters of sandstone were extracted in the course of six hundred years in about a dozen quarries around the city. Today, only two remain active at a very low pace, mainly to sustain restoration efforts in the old town, since building laws still require all facades to be made specifically out of Bernese sandstone. One of these quarries is located at the foot of the Gurten, a hill in the outskirts of the city. It supplies the material for the restoration of the Münster, Bern’s most important cathedral. After their extraction, the stone blocks are brought to a storage location under a highway bridge. From there, they are transported to a workshop located along the river, where they are worked on by the stonemasons, after which the finished stone piece is brought to the Münster. This project proposes interventions at two sites along this spiritual path of the sandstone. The aim is to give these sites additional meanings, purposes and to make them accessible to the public.