Christoffelturm

The Christoffelturm was a tower built between the years 1344 and 1346, which featured a prominently displayed statue of Saint Christopher. It was located in the old part of the Swiss city of Bern, in the upper section of Spitalgasse, near Holy Spirit Church. After a political decision on December 15, 1864, the Christoffelturm was removed by Gottlieb Ott, a Swiss building contractor. Ott began the destruction of the tower in spring of the following year. The decision to remove the tower, which had become a landmark of sorts, was not met without opposition, and the motion of removal succeeded only by a 415 to 411 vote. During an extended period of time, other statues existed near or actually on the site where the tower used to stand. These included a statue of King David, both as a boy holding a slingshot, and as a man. An early 20th century plan to erect a figure of the Bernese knight Rudolf von Erlach was never realised.