The largest complex of historicist architecture in Switzerland is located on the outskirts of the subalpine town of Thun. It is a European example of the application of principles developed in the first half of the 19th century to define optimum aesthetic and functional standards for public buildings (schools, hospitals, prisons, etc.). In accordance with these, arsenals and barracks were mostly given sparing architectural forms, derived from the Gothic or early Italian Renaissance. The latter's modular repetition and clear and regular compositional arrangement characterise the barracks in Thun.

After the adoption of the constitution in 1848, a number of measures were taken in Switzerland to unify and partly centralise the state - including its military. The first military school in the country had existed in Thun since 1819, and General Guillaume-Henri Dufour, who taught there, was the main initiator of the creation of a garrison there. Leopold Stanislaw Blotnicki, an engineer and architect active mainly in Bern at the time, and the author there of, among other things, the magnificent headquarters of the UBS bank (after previous successes in Geneva and Fribourg, where he was cantonal architect), won the last of the competitions, held successively at federal level, which provided for the construction in Thun of the main barracks of the Confederation army. By decision of the federal authorities in Bern, Blotnicki's design (created in collaboration with the engineer Felix Wilhelm Kubly from Sankt Gallen) was finally adopted in 1863. The building was originally planned for a garrison of 1162 men and 400 horses. It is not clear which of the many ancillary buildings Blotnicki also designed. Educated in the academies of Berlin and Munich, he proposed an architectural costume typical of German countries. However, with the austerity of the façade and sparing detailing, there are elements of 'defensive' rustication, turrets on the corners of the risalits, and an ideological programme: dates of important battles from Swiss history, coats of arms of the cantons, and inscriptions in all four languages of the Confederation.

The complex was subsequently enlarged several times. The last conservation of the monument took place in 1964. Between 2016 and 2019, the barracks buildings were extensively renovated and modernised. In the discussion of this decision at the federal level, the military but also the historical-architectural significance of the complex, the most important for the Confederation next to the Parliament in Bern and the Zurich University of Technology, was pointed out, being recognised as the first garrison of the federal armed forces and, in the 20th century, also as the 'Heimat der Panzertruppen der Schweizerischen Armee' ('nest' of the armoured troops of the Swiss Army).