The Handwerkerbank Basel was a Swiss bank founded in 1860 by members of the Basler Handwerker- und Gewerbeverein (Basel Crafts and Trade Association) at Aeschenvorstadt in Basel.[1] The bank operated until 1979, when it was taken over by the Schweizerischer Bankverein (Swiss Bank Corporation).[2] Its visual identity, created in the post-war period, reflected the bank’s craft-oriented name and its place in Basel’s banking district.
Design and History
The bank’s symbol was originally designed by Cioma Schönhaus in 1950.[3] Schönhaus, a German-born graphic artist who trained at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel and later ran a graphic design and communication studio in the city from 1953 to 2000, created the mark during his early career in Basel.[4]
In 1952, the sculptor Bénédict Remund created a stone relief titled “Die Hand” (The Hand) as a signet for the bank’s facade at Aeschenvorstadt 2 in Basel.[5] The contemporary journal Das Werk noted that Remund had the difficult task of giving plastic form to the signet that graphic designers had created for printed materials, and that his sculpture was intended to present the bank’s signet in three dimensions.[6] This indicates that the printed signet by Schönhaus and the architectural relief by Remund were conceived as related expressions of the same mark.
The bank’s main building at Aeschenvorstadt 2-6, completed in 1958 by architects Franz Bräuning, Hans Leu and Arthur Dürig, was one of the most representative post-war modernist structures in Basel.[7] The building’s facades, clad in white Lasa marble and black Belgian granite, provided the setting for Remund’s relief.[7]
Meaning and Symbolism
The bank’s name, “Handwerkerbank,” translates to “Craftsmen’s Bank,” reflecting its founding by the Basel crafts and trade association.[1] The hand motif, rendered both in the printed signet and in Remund’s stone relief, directly references the craftsman’s hand and the bank’s trade-focused identity.[5] The contemporary account in Das Werk confirms that the hand was understood as the bank’s signet, carried through both graphic and sculptural applications.[6]
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