Clock-Tower

The clock-tower was an ele­ment of the for­ti­fi­ca­ti­on of Lucer­ne. The town wall and its nine towers (Nöl­li, Männ­li, Lue­gis­land, Wacht, Zyt, Schirm­er, Pul­ver, Allen­win­den and Däch­li), built bet­ween the 14th and 16th cen­tu­ry, stood as a sym­bol for the ever gro­wing power of the City and Repu­blic of Lucerne.

The name Musegg appears for the first time in various docu­ments in the year 1352. The ori­gin of the word „musen” is Midd­le High Ger­man and means to scout (: to look out for). The town wall tog­e­ther with its towers and moats for­med the second ring of defence of the city of Lucer­ne in which the nine towers were situa­ted in the north in front of the town wall. When the medi­ae­val defen­ces of the town were demo­lished on the left bank of the river Reuss in the 19th cen­tu­ry only the­se towers tog­e­ther with the outer Weg­gis tower remain­ed as places of inte­rest. Today the Musegg wall, with a length of more than 800 meters, repres­ents the lon­gest medi­ae­val defen­si­ve works of Switzerland.

The clock-tower was built in the 15th cen­tu­ry but the oldest tim­ber used for the plat­forms can be dated to the year 1403. In 1511 a hip-roof was erec­ted and the tower final­ly recei­ved its actu­al shape. The clock-tower is the­r­e­fo­re older than the Zyt­glog­ge tower in Ber­ne. The fres­co-pain­ting (1596) on the south faça­de shows two giants hol­ding the face of the clock.

The clock-tower was the only tower who­se pur­po­se was not for defence. Thanks to its big clock-face and bell the peo­p­le in the city and the boat crews out on the lake could read the accu­ra­te time. Still today the stro­ke of the clock-tower clock is one minu­te befo­re the chi­me of the church bells (pri­vi­le­ge of first stroke).

In 1579 the clock-tower was hit by light­ning and on 16th August 1583 the bell and the clock­work as well as the top plat­form were hit again. Smo­ke bil­lo­wed but the tower as well as the clock­work remain­ed undamaged.

In the 19th cen­tu­ry as well as in the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry the clock-tower was used as sto­rage space for tim­ber. Sin­ce 1978 it has been a public view-point.

The actu­al exhi­bi­ti­on in the clock-tower shows ten/nine his­to­ric tower-clocks, five/four of them in ope­ra­ti­on. Here you will find infor­ma­ti­on regar­ding their histo­ry and their engi­nee­ring fea­tures – the deve­lo­p­ment of mecha­ni­cal clocks star­ted with the con­s­truc­tion of tower-clocks in the Midd­le Ages. The tower-clocks of this exhi­bi­ti­on repre­sent the life’s coll­ec­tion of Jörg Spö­ring, the clock-maker of the City of Lucerne.

The bell
In 1513 an ope­ning in the wall on the south faça­de was built for the bell. Part of the bell pro­jects bey­ond the ope­ning as the oak beams of the frame sit on the outer wall. A small cano­py over the ope­ning pro­tects the bell and its clap­per from the elements.

The first bell of the clock-tower was taken from St. Peter’s Cha­pel (form­er­ly St. Peter’s Church) on Cha­pel Squa­re. The bell had an excep­tio­nal­ly beau­tiful, clear chi­me and was inscri­bed in Latin “Anno Domi­ni 1381 fusa est haec cam­pa­na, sanc­te Leo­de­ga­ri ora pro nobis” (This bell was foun­ded in the year of the Lord 1381, St. Leo­de­gar pray for us.). In 1788 the bell was moved to the cathe­dral (Col­le­gia­te Church of St. Leo­de­gar in the Cathe­dral ward) and in the same year a new big­ger and hea­vier bell was put in the clock-tower. This bell has a dia­me­ter of 127 cm and weighs over a ton. The inscrip­ti­on on the out­side depic­ting the cru­ci­fi­xi­on and the coat of arms of Lucer­ne reads: „Mas­ter Nico­laus Dür­ler the pre­sent buil­der of Lucer­ne | Hein­rich Suter­meis­ter foun­ded me in the year 1788”.

The bell strikes one minu­te befo­re the chi­me of the church bells in Lucer­ne. In 1385 the city coun­cil decreed the so cal­led pri­vi­le­ge of first stro­ke for the public clock. The pri­vi­le­ge to strike the hour first was trans­fer­red from the clock in the Grag­gen tower in the Hal­de ward to the Luter clock in the clock-tower. This pri­vi­le­ge is a sign of the self-con­scious­ness of the city: Whoe­ver is mas­ter of time, is mas­ter of ter­ri­to­ry and life therein.

Pain­ting on the façade
In 1511 the pain­ting on the faça­de was copied for the first time by the town clerk Die­bold Schil­ling in his chro­nic­le. It shows two red men hol­ding bell clap­pers stan­ding on both sides of the ope­ning in the wall and the clock-face with two giants (: wild men). The giants were the sym­bol of strength and power of the sol­diers and mer­ce­na­ries of Lucer­ne. In 1547 the tower was rede­co­ra­ted in fres­co tech­ni­que. In 1596 the fres­co was rene­wed by Joseph Moser and in 1939 Karl F. Scho­bin­ger (1879–1951) desi­gned the actu­al pain­ting on the faça­de whe­re the two giants still hold the coat of arms of Lucerne.

Scho­bin­ger was a pupil of Fer­di­nand Hod­ler in Gen­e­va. From 1911 to 1914 he taught the art of pain­ting at the aca­de­my of arts in Bres­lau (today: Wro­claw / PL).