Junkerngasse

Junkerngasse

Junkerngasse
Old City of Bern with Junkerngasse highlighted
Former name(s)	Kilchgasse Edle Gasse
Length	300 m (1,000 ft)
Location	Old City of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Postal code	3011
Coordinates	46°56′52″N 7°27′15″E / 46.9479°N 7.4543°E / 46.9479; 7.4543
Construction
Construction start	1191

The Junkerngasse ("Nobility Lane") is a street in the Old City of Bern, the medieval city center of Bern, Switzerland. It connects the tip of the Aar peninsula (the Nydegg neighbourhood) to the Münster.

The Junkerngasse is the Old City's best-preserved street. The riverfront of its palatial houses with their late Baroque façades and extensive garden terraces has been described in an art history guidebook as "one of Europe's most magnificent cityscapes".

The Junkerngasse connects to the generally parallel Gerechtigkeitsgasse and to the Nydegggasse in the east, and continues as the Münstergasse to the west. It is connected to the Gerechtigkeitsgasse by small alleyways leading north (Oberes and Unteres Gerechtigkeitsgässchen). The Bubenbergrain descends through the Bubenbergtor, a former city gate, towards the river Aare in the south.

The street was called Kirchgasse ("Church Lane") up until the 16th century, and was renamed from Edle Gasse ("Noble Lane") to Junkerngasse in the 17th century. The latter names reflect the street's character as a residential area almost exclusively used by Bern's leading patrician families. Only a few houses (nos. 7–15) were originally craftsmen's houses.

The street's current topography reflects about the state of 1470. The earlier records are fragmentary, but at some time between 1430 and 1468 the city's earliest town hall was demolished at the Junkerngasse's the western end. Since then, the general structure of the street has remained unchanged. The pavement was replaced in 1998.

The street's only fountain is the Junkerngassbrunnen, a plain Stockbrunnen adorned with a 17th-century figure of a lion bearing a lance and the Bubenberg arms. No. 9 is the best-preserved of the Junkerngasse's Late Gothic craftsmen's houses. No. 21, the von Scharnachthal house, is one of Berne's most elegant Early Baroque works by Friedrich May. The four-story street façade of no. 31 (1700–20) links Late Renaissance elements with the structure characteristic of the Bernese Late Baroque. The interior of No. 39 displays the skills of 18th-century Bernese craftsmen in transforming medieval townhouses into comfortable residences; the courtyard is particularly noted for its Baroque elegance. No. 43 (1784–86) is exemplary for Bernese architecture at the threshold between Late Baroque and Classicism. No. 22 was the workshop of painter Friedrich Traffelet (1897–1954); it features a humorous façade painting of 1913. No. 22, the Morlot-Haus by Albrecht Türler, is the most ambitious building in the northern part of the street.