Universal Post Monument, Fountain and sculpture at Kleine Schanze, Switzerland
The Universal Post Monument stands on the Kleine Schanze behind a wide fountain basin, on an artificial rock with a spring at its foot. A cloud column rises from the highest peak, carrying a globe around which five female figures representing the continents float and pass letters to one another. Beside it, on a granite base, sits Berna, the city's female personification, her right hand resting on Bern's coat of arms.
The 1900 anniversary postal congress in Bern, where German state secretary Victor von Podbielski proposed a monument, led the Swiss Federal Council to launch an international competition on 31 October 1902. Of 120 entries, René de Saint-Marceaux's revised "Autour du monde" won on 8 August 1904 after he added the seated Berna. The bronze and granite work arrived from Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1909 and was inaugurated on 4 October.
The monument displays a female figure representing Bern with her hand placed on the city's coat of arms, anchoring this work in local identity. This detail connects the sculpture to the city itself rather than just to international postal themes.
The monument stands on the Kleine Schanze, a park on the site of Bern's former city walls, a short walk west of the main railway station and the old town. The bronze and granite work arrived in 1909 from the Neuilly-sur-Seine studio near Paris in 60 railway wagonloads. The fountain basin and artificial rock sit in the open; the surrounding lawns and benches make it a stopping point on a walk between the station and the Bundesplatz.
The globe-and-messengers motif was adopted as the Universal Postal Union's emblem in 1967. By 2009 it had appeared on more than 800 postage stamps worldwide. Plaster and bronze models by Saint-Marceaux, Emil Hundrieser and Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi are kept in Bern's Museum of Communication.
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