Over the nearly seventy years since the construction of the Zytglogge tower and the first city walls, Bern had expanded westward along the Aare peninsula.

After the fire, the town's prison was moved from the Zytglogge tower west to the Käfigturm, which was then known as the nüwe kefyen.

According to a drawing by Gregorius Sickinger, the original tower stood about 3.8 meters (12 ft) east of its current location.

On 20 January 1643, the exterior work was complete and Graber handed the project over to master carpenter Hans Stähli to finish the roof and the interior woodwork.

During the planning phase, the commission determined that the new Käfigturm would not be large enough to close the several prisons around Bern and move them all into the new tower.

In February 1641, the town council acquired the house of the recently deceased widow of Hans Gunier, which lay just south of the new tower.

Once Graber finished the exterior work on the house, the interior was built in 1643/44 by Niclaus Bovet.

The decorative Corbels and triglyphs and a window in the middle section of the tower were all removed to add the clock.

When the town decided to add a bell, the Thirty Years War was still raging in Europe.

So, the town council chose to buy a bell that had been captured near Vesoul and was being shipped as war booty to Freiburg.

[5] The tower remained virtually unchanged over the following centuries, though the attached house was renovated and gained two additional stories between 1794 and 1805.

[6] For a time a portion of the basement served as a warehouse of the adjacent Garnier wine shop.

After the information center closed it was temporarily used as a commercial library and sporadically hosted exhibitions, private parties or meetings.