Where does the data for the 3D models come from?

The building geometry comes from swissBUILDINGS3D 3.0 by swisstopo, the Swiss federal office of topography's 3D model of buildings in Switzerland.

How big is the Zytglogge model?

The Zytglogge is printed at a scale of 1:400 and measures 73 × 68 × 136 mm.

Can I buy a model yet?

Sales start soon. If you'd like one, write to me at info@rcprints.ch and I'll let you know.

Bern 3D Models: Zytglogge, Minster and Federal Palace

From linocut to 3D model: why RC prints now makes the Zytglogge, Bern Minster and other Bern landmarks as small 3D models, and where the geometry comes from.

If you print in 2D, why not print in 3D too? That thought wouldn’t leave me alone, and it turned into a small Zytglogge, 136 millimetres tall, with “RCprints.ch” engraved in its base.

So alongside the linocuts, RC prints is adding Bern landmarks as 3D models. Here’s why, and how one of these models comes together.

Why would a linocut studio make 3D models?

I’ve always loved architecture. And geometry, and technical drawing. At school technical drawing was my favourite subject, and my drawings are still more geometric than playful.

You can see it in my linocuts. I like cutting roofs, domes, facades, lines running towards each other. To me a building is already a drawing before I draw it.

At some point the question was just there: if a brand prints in 2D, why not in 3D as well? So I decided to add it to the portfolio. No grand plan, more the same curiosity that kept pulling me back to linoleum.

Where does the geometry come from?

I don’t make the buildings up. The geometry comes from swissBUILDINGS3D 3.0 by swisstopo, the 3D building model of Switzerland, where roofs, towers and volumes have been surveyed.

That data becomes a printable model at the right scale. The Zytglogge, for example, is printed at 1:400 and measures 73 × 68 × 136 mm. Small enough for a bookshelf, big enough to make out the clock face and the spire.

The models are printed in matte PLA. It doesn’t look like shiny plastic; it reads more like stone or plaster, like a small cast. “RCprints.ch” is engraved on the base.

The matte finish mattered to me. My linocuts are black on natural white, slightly rough paper, no gloss, no effects. A shiny model next to them would have felt wrong. This way a print and a model sit happily on the same shelf, even if one of them is flat and the other isn’t.

Which Bern buildings are available as models?

Right now these Bern landmarks:

Zytglogge (the clock tower)
Berner Münster (Bern Minster)
Bundeshaus (Federal Palace)
Käfigturm (Prison Tower)
Heiliggeistkirche (Church of the Holy Spirit)
Nydeggkirche (Nydegg Church)
Bundeshaus with the Bundesterrasse

Three buildings, three stories

Zytglogge: the old town’s clock tower, built between 1218 and 1530. It’s my favourite as a model because it’s so compact and still packed with detail.
Bern Minster: the largest late Gothic church in Switzerland, begun in 1421. Its 100.6-metre tower was only finished in 1893. More than 450 years of building work in a model that fits in your hand.
Federal Palace: the Parliament Building by Hans Wilhelm Auer, built from 1894 to 1902 out of 30 kinds of stone from 13 cantons and half-cantons. Anyone who has stood on Bundesplatz knows that dome.

They’re the buildings you look up at anyway when you walk under the arcades of the old town. And it’s a nice feeling to hold something as a solid object that you’d normally think of as lines on paper.

How can I see a model before buying?

There’s a dedicated Bern in 3D section on the website. You can rotate each model in 3D with your finger or mouse and look at it from eight angles.

On the site the models are drawn the way a linocut block would cut them: light becomes lines. For me that’s the bridge between the two worlds.

And honestly, there’s one thing I especially enjoy. In linocut every cut is final, and more than once I’ve had a motif half cut before realising I’d forgotten to mirror it. A 3D model I can spin around as often as I like. Nothing comes out back to front.

When can I buy a Bern 3D model?

Sales start soon. If you already know you want a Zytglogge, a Minster or a Federal Palace, just write to me at [email protected] and I’ll get back to you when they’re ready.

From 1 December 2026, CHF 5 from every 3D model sold goes to the Bern association übrig, just like with the original linocuts. The reason is in the piece on buying art in Bern that gives back.

Have a look at the models in the Bern in 3D section and give them a few turns. And if you want to know how a building on paper turns into lines, read the article about the lines.