Dirty shop windows with good reason

It is almost certainly the dirtiest shop window in the whole of town – but also one of the most fascinating. The Weiland locksmith’s shop has been located at Münsterberg 16 since 1913 – the hammering noises emanating from the workshop, the work with fire and red-hot metal is as fascinating today as it ever was. Christoph Weiland, who runs this Basel family business in the fourth generation, has spectators, large and small, visiting him every day: “There is almost certainly not a single business with windows dirtier than ours. That is partly because of the work we do and partly because of all the curious people who flatten their noses against the window pane outside. We could clean the windows every day but I think the murky panes are part of the charm of our workshop.” The fascination with craftsmanship it seems is unwavering. Probably because any form of craftsmanship is always an artform.

Fire – the essential companion

And these artworks that are created in the Weiland workshop, are first-off loud, rough, dirty, hot and dangerous. Working in the narrowest of spaces, crammed in between machines and tools that seem to be even older than the Weiland locksmith’s shop itself, the team led by Christoph Wieland is engaged in very different projects for the city. Railings, doorways, shop signs, steel and support structures – the handwork in the workshop consists of, on the one hand, rough physically demanding work, and on the other, the finest precision work. Hammering, grinding, bending, welding – with fire the essential companion, breaking their foreheads out in a sweat every day.

In the end, it is the joy of the finished product that prevails. The joy of having been involved in the creation or restauration of something significant and of then espying it somewhere in the city afterwards. Thanks to the company’s long history and its specialisation in artistic wrought ironwork and metal design, Christoph Weiland is entrusted with very special and delicate commissions which other metalworkers would not even consider taking on. For example, the restoration of St. George’s lance from the façade of Basel Cathedral. “I remember an assignment up at the top of Basel Cathedral, seeing ancient stonemason’s marks and realising what an honour it is to be contributing to the work on this monumental building. A really wonderful feeling.”

A skilful trade is a goldmine

Anyhow, there is scarcely an artwork in the city that the old-fashioned workshop on the Münsterberg has not seen from the inside at one time or another. For example, the Weiland locksmiths renovated the basilisks on the Wettstein Bridge and the work by Calder that stands in the park of the Beyeler Foundation. Many of the artfully worked, elliptical signs hanging over the entrances of a variety of Basel’s traditional watering holes were created here.

While digitalisation is making huge strides into almost every branch of industry, leaving not a stone standing in some of them, it seems that this technical upheaval is affecting the traditional trade of the Weiland locksmith shop to a far lesser degree. “Hopefully, the fact that we live in a city so steeped in history which requires constant maintenance, means we will be around for a good many more years”, says Christoph Weiland and he is optimistic. With good reason, because his son too has already discovered the joys of metalworking and can well imagine taking over the long-established company one day. So, the fifth generation of the Weiland family is already waiting in the wings.