The record
Two segments in the garden of the World Council of Churches, obtained by a body that had spent the Cold War talking across the line the concrete drew.
Two segments have stood in the garden of the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva since 1991, one of them laid flat. The lying element was painted by Thierry Noir; the standing one carries graffiti of unknown authorship, now largely faded.
The initiative came from the Conference of European Churches, which was based at the centre until 2014 and wanted to act, in its own phrase, as an ecumenical Mauerspecht — a wall woodpecker. Founded after the Second World War by leading church figures, the conference had spent four decades trying to keep the churches in contact across the political division of Europe and to mediate between the two systems, and the segments were meant to point at that as much as at the event itself.
Getting them took two goes at the German state. The conference first approached the board set up in the spring of 1990 by the last GDR government to direct the proceeds of the Limex wall sales to the East German health service. In the end it was the defence ministry in Bonn, which after reunification was responsible for distributing what was left of the border, that arranged for the two elements to come to Switzerland; the centre had only to find about 7,000 Swiss francs for transport and installation.
They were inaugurated on 23 September 1991, during a meeting of the central committee of the World Council of Churches, in a short service led by four representatives of international church bodies — Emilio Castro of the World Council of Churches, Jean Fischer of the Conference of European Churches, Sarah Stephens of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and Kaanaeli Makundi of the Lutheran World Federation — and blessed by Aram Keshishian of the Armenian Apostolic Church. What the clergy spoke about was not the wall that had come down but the visible and invisible ones still standing between people everywhere.
How did it get here?
Arranged through the German defence ministry in Bonn, which after reunification distributed the remaining wall elements, at the request of the Conference of European Churches; the centre paid about 7,000 Swiss francs for transport and installation.
Sources & verification
Berlin Wall Archive ↗
The source lists this place as a Berlin Wall location. Coordinates, where supplied, are source-reported and may represent a general area. This is not independent verification of authenticity, current presence, or public access.
Source accessed 2026-09-17 · Source record 140
Source-reported segments: 3. This is not a separately verified count.
Federal Foundation — Berlin Wall worldwide, site entry ↗
The two segments in the Ecumenical Centre garden since 1991 and the Thierry Noir painting on the recumbent one, the Conference of European Churches' initiative and its Cold War role, the approach to the GDR proceeds board and the eventual arrangement by the defence ministry in Bonn, the 7,000 Swiss franc cost, and the inauguration service of 23 September 1991 with its named participants.
Source accessed 2026-09-17
Last verified: Not yet verified
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