Aare
— — the river that keeps its glacier in its colour.
Not only on a wall.
“The Aare rises from the Aar Glaciers at the head of the Haslital, runs 288 kilometres through the Swiss plateau, and loops around the old town of Bern in a horseshoe nobody seems to get tired of looking at. In summer, swimmers drift downstream from the Marzili lawns past the Bundeshaus, their dry-bags bright on the green water. In winter the same green darkens and the city walks along the banks instead. from the studio
Aare, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Aare is the longest river that runs entirely within Switzerland, measuring 288 kilometres from source to confluence. It rises from the Unteraar and Oberaar glaciers in the Bernese Alps, drops through the gorge below the Grimsel Pass, fills the Brienzersee and the Thunersee, and then turns north through the city of Bern. Below Bern it crosses the Swiss plateau and joins the Rhine at Koblenz in the canton of Aargau. The river drains roughly 17,800 square kilometres and is the largest tributary of the Rhine by volume.
The green of the Aare through Bern is glacial rock flour, the same suspended limestone dust that turns Lake Pukaki in New Zealand and Lago di Sorapis in the Dolomites turquoise. The colour is strongest in late summer when meltwater from the Aar Glaciers is at its peak, and softens after autumn rains push silt down the gorges. The Thunersee acts as a settling basin upstream, so the water emerging at the Aare's outlet in Thun is clearer and brighter than what entered from the Haslital above.
Bern's summer ritual is the Aareschwumm: locals enter the river at the Marzili public bath, drift roughly 1.5 kilometres past the Bundeshaus, and climb out at one of the marked exits before the Felsenau weir. Water temperature peaks around 22°C in July and August, then drops sharply into the autumn. The river is fast and the city authorities post current and temperature on aare.guru. By December the banks belong to walkers and the city's covered bridges, and the green reads almost black against the snow.