EMCH East Panoramic Elevator @ Swissôtel Kursaal Bern****, Bern, BE, Switzerland

Kursaal Bern is a hillside entertainment and hospitality complex on a scenic location overlooking the Aare river and the old town of the Swiss federal capital. The complex traces its origins to a summer performance and gaming hall founded in 1859 by a local businessman on the Schänzli hilltop, taking advantage of the views over Bern and the Alps that had already made the hill a popular excursion destination. In 1914, a new concert hall opened with an elevator tower that provided quick access to the hilltop; some of these structures are still intact and have been incorporated into the modern complex. Over time, the complex expanded and modernized, adding a new arena, a hotel, and a conference center, as well as with the opening of the official casino, the Grand Casino Bern, under new federal legislation in 2002. The 171-room hotel of the complex opened in 1998 after 15 years of planning and construction, occupying a five-floor structure built into the southern side of the hill beneath the existing arena. Originally operating as an independent hotel under the name of Hotel Allegro, it rebranded to a Swissôtel in 2021 and subsequently became the brand's new flagship; this coincided with the closing of the former Swissôtel in Zürich, which served as the flagship Swissôtel for a long time, as the hotel's owner entered into insolvency owing to steep decline in tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside the sister property in Basel (now a Marriott), leaving this the only property of the brand to be located in its home country. The hotel's rooms were arranged around a naturally lit atrium, beneath which two restaurants—the Italian restaurant Giardino, with an outdoor terrace facing a landscaped garden, and the fusion Asian restaurant Yù as well as several conference rooms were located. Besides the rooms, a meeting room was located on the eastern ends of 2nd and 3rd floors, while a fitness center occupied the western end of the 3rd floor. The hotel was linked to the conference wing of the Kursaal, and thereby the larger Kursaal complex, via a door and one of the elevators on the 4th floor. The hotel's rooms were mainly served by two glass elevators, one near each end of the atrium, alongside three more non-panoramic elevators, of which two were at the western end and one was at the eastern side of the hotel wing. In addition, another elevator provided access to the ground-floor hotel lobby from the underground parking garage of the Kursaal complex. There were no designated service elevators, though the east non-panoramic elevator seemed to function as one. All of the elevators had been supplied by EMCH, an independent local elevator manufacturer based in Bern and named after its founder, Robert Emch. This video features the glass elevator at the eastern side of the hotel atrium. A bottom-drive traction installation apparently put into place when the hotel was first built as Hotel Allegro, it had a strikingly futuristic appearance that was certainly way ahead of its time back then, with sleek full-glass doors, walls, and shafts that overlooked the ground-floor lobby and the guestroom corridors. The fixtures had been brought in from Schaefer (which seemed to be a favorite among Swiss generic elevator-makers), consisting of MT 42 buttons as well as an older version of TFT-LCD display inside the cab and on each landings; the latter, while quite common nowadays, if original would definitely have been considered a premium option in the late 1990s. Despite the cab being quite small, the glass walls made it seem much larger than it actually was. A keycard reader was present beneath the COP, though it only seemed to be in use during late night hours. While the elevator was overall being maintained quite well despite being in its third decade of service, it was nonetheless showing its age with the somewhat rough ride quality and peeling paints on the buttons. Manufacturer: EMCH Aufzüge AG Model name: VVVF Year of commission: 1997 Loading: 630kg (1,390lbs) Capacity: 8 persons Full speed: 1m/s (200FPM) Serviced floors: *0, 1, 2, 3, 4