Schwarzenburg Castle (Wahlern)

Schloss Schwarzenburg is a 16th-century castle in the municipality of Wahlern in the Swiss canton of Bern. As an exemplary manor house of the 16th and 17th centuries, it is a building monument of national importance. For 430 years, the castle has served as the seat of the Schwarzenburg district administration.

The Lordship of Grasburg was sold in 1423 by the Counts of Savoy to the cities of Bern and Fribourg in Uechtland. These had a new, comfortable castle built in the village of Schwarzenburg between 1573 and 1575 for their Vogt, alternately a Bernese and a Fribourger, in place of the remote castle. In 1798, the former "common" lordship came to Bern alone.

Schloss Schwarzenburg is characterized by its three-story, brick-built structure under a half-hipped roof, the emphasized gable facade, and the polygonal stair tower on the eaves side. As a special feature and an architectural symbol of dignity, the castle received a quadrangular walled courtyard with two striking corner turrets in front of the main facade, which only symbolize defensiveness. Schwarzenburg thus embodies the canonical type of manor house in the 16th and 17th centuries, supplemented by features of the then popular "castle romanticism". The house has been spared major interventions in facades, basic structures, and furnishings, not least thanks to its particularly robust construction.