Albert Einstein was working in Bern when he developed his special theory of relativity. In 1905, he was employed as a technical expert at the Swiss Patent Office, a job he had held since 1902.
Although the patent-office position was not an academic research post, it gave Einstein a stable income and exposure to inventions involving electrical systems, timing, and the transmission of signals. Those subjects connected closely with his questions about how observers measure time and motion. He often worked on theoretical physics outside office hours.
Einstein published his paper on special relativity in 1905, later celebrated as his annus mirabilis, or miracle year. The theory argued that the laws of physics are the same for uniformly moving observers and that the speed of light is constant. Bern is the best canonical answer because it identifies both his workplace and the city where he carried out the intellectual work leading to the theory. Einstein moved to Berlin in 1914, years after the theory had been published.