Sandstone has been won in the community of Ostermundigen ever since the Middle Ages. Production reached its heyday during the second half of the 19th century, with the industrial revolution. At the time the Ostermundigen sandstone quarry was the largest in Switzerland, with shipments sent far beyond the country’s borders.

Sandstone quarrying had a major impact on the Ostermundigen community. Generations of labourers, stone masons and builders owed their subsistence to sandstone from Ostermundigen. Countless buildings, from the most modest to the most magnificent, were made of this material. To this day the quarries and their history have remained the distinctive landmark of Ostermundigen.

The project of a museum dedicated to Paul Klee and its construction in the immediate vicinity of the Ostermundigen community had an integrating effect on existing yet widely differing efforts surrounding the stone quarries. Everyone involved knew that Paul Klee had been fascinated by the stone quarries and the people who worked there, and that he had often spent time there. The quarries were a source of inspiration for many of his paintings and drawings.

The idea of rescuing Ostermundigen's landmark from oblivion, a landmark that had once even been famous abroad, then began to take shape as did the plan to develop the Zentrum Paul Klee in an attractive way. Initiatives were soon put forward by the population, politicians, the business community, and public sector administrations.

For the conceptual work the Stone Quarries Working Group was set up under the leadership of the former Ostermundigen local authority president Theo Weber. The project is today the responsibility of the Zentrum Paul Klee.

A Stone Quarries Joint Venture has also been established, spontaneously bringing together the principal land owners, users and residents of the area in question, at the foot of the Ostermundigenberg.
 
The concept for making use of the individual quarry sites is aimed at children, young people, adults and families in equal measure. At the core of the attractions in the stone quarries is the platform entitled "Standort Paul Klee, Ostermundigen“ (Paul Klee Site at Ostermundigen). It is positioned in such a way that it offers the same view of the quarries as a number of paintings by Paul Klee. Information boards provide more details of the location and its significance for the Ostermundigen community, for Bern and for Paul Klee.