Well known for building the Unité d’Habitation in several cities like Marseille and Berlin, co-designing the UN building in New York City, and inspiring the concept of the Radiant City, Le Corbusier also had an impact in his home country of Switzerland. Born in La Chaux-de-Fonds near the French border, his first works were also in the area with several villas built up in the hills as student projects. These buildings hardly look like the mid-century masterpieces he’s so well-known for.
Some of his later work in Geneva and Paris were even recognised as UNESCO heritage sites in 2016. Apart from the works that he designed himself, he was responsible for the inspiration of vast expanses of identical high rise blocks to house people in what looked like Howard’s Garden City concept. Enter the suburb of Bethlehem in Bern. Though not the hometown of Joseph and Mary, it is the birthplace of Bauhaus-style high-rise residences in Switzerland.
As early as the 1950’s, high-rise buildings with concrete slabs arranged at right angles sprouted out of the ground. In the following decades, similar housing projects were built around it. It has a suburban train station, a grade-separated tramway, schools and supermarkets in the middle of each development project, and centralised shopping facilities. There was very little in the was of jobs in this area, and most would have to commute to the centre of Bern for jobs. A slice of Eastern Europe in the Swiss capital.
Newer buildings to the west of the area around the modern Westfield shopping mall have been built in the last two decades in a similar style. However, the newer buildings are posher, indicating a departure from the people the buildings in this community were designed to serve.
