Monte Verita
Encyclopedia
Monte Verità is a hill (350 metres or 1,148.3 ft high) in Ascona
(Swiss
canton of Ticino
), which has served as the site of many different Utopian and cultural events and communities since the beginning of the twentieth century.
The colonists "abhorred private property, practised a rigid code of morality, strict vegetarianism and nudism. They rejected convention in marriage and dress, party politics and dogmas: they were tolerantly intolerant."
Anarchist physician Raphael Friedeberg
moved to Ascona in 1904, attracting many other anarchists to the area. Artists and other famous people attracted to this hill included Hermann Hesse
, Carl Jung
, Erich Maria Remarque
, Hugo Ball
, Else Lasker-Schüler
, Stefan George
, Isadora Duncan
, Carl Eugen Keel
, Paul Klee
, Carlo Mense
, Arnold Ehret
, Rudolf Steiner
, Mary Wigman
, Max Picard
, Ernst Toller
, Henry van de Velde
, Fanny zu Reventlow
, Rudolf Laban
, Frieda
and Else von Richthofen
, Otto Gross
, Erich Mühsam
, Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach
, Walter Segal
, Max Weber, and Gustav Stresemann
; and Gustav Nagel.
From 1913 to 1918, Rudolf Laban
operated a "School for Art" on Monte Verità, and in 1917 Theodor Reuss
, Master of the Ordo Templi Orientis
organized a conference there covering many themes, including societies without nationalism, women's rights, mystic freemasonry, and dance as art, ritual and religion.
From 1923 to 1926, Monte Verità was operated as a hotel by artists Werner Ackermann, Max Bethke and Hugo Wilkens, until it was acquired in 1926 by Baron Eduard von der Heydt. The following year, a new Bauhaus
-style hotel was built by Emil Fahrenkamp
. Eduard von der Heydt died in 1964, and the site became the property of the Canton of Ticino
.
In 1992, after two years of renovations, the ETH Zurich
conference facility, Centro Stefano Franscini was officially opened at the site.
conference facility, Centro Stefano Franscini, as well as a museum comprising three buildings: the Casa Anatta, a flat-roofed wooden building which served as headquarters to the vegetarian colony and now houses an exhibition of the history of the site; the Casa Selma, a small building which was used to house sun-bathers at the Sanatorium; and a building housing the panoramic painting
"The Clear World of the Blessed", by Elisar von Kupffer
. The hill is also the site of a tea garden and Japanese teahouse.
Ascona
Ascona is a municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland.It is located on the shore of Lake Maggiore.The town is a popular tourist destination, and holds a yearly jazz festival, the Ascona Jazz Festival....
(Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
canton of Ticino
Ticino
Canton Ticino or Ticino is the southernmost canton of Switzerland. Named after the Ticino river, it is the only canton in which Italian is the sole official language...
), which has served as the site of many different Utopian and cultural events and communities since the beginning of the twentieth century.
History
In 1900, Henry Oedenkoven, the 25-year-old son of a businessman from Antwerp, and his companion Ida Hofmann purchased a hill in Ascona which had been known as "Monescia" and established the "Co-operative vegetarian colony Monte Verità". The colony was established first on principles of primitive socialism, but later championed an individualistic vegetarianism and hosted the Monte Verità Sanatorium, a sun-bathing establishment.The colonists "abhorred private property, practised a rigid code of morality, strict vegetarianism and nudism. They rejected convention in marriage and dress, party politics and dogmas: they were tolerantly intolerant."
Anarchist physician Raphael Friedeberg
Raphael Friedeberg
Raphael Friedeberg was a German physician, socialist, and later anarchist.- Early life :Friedeberg was born in Tilsit, East Prussia, today's Sovetsk, Russia, to Salomon, a Rabbi, and Rebekka Friedeberg née Levy...
moved to Ascona in 1904, attracting many other anarchists to the area. Artists and other famous people attracted to this hill included Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...
, Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
, Erich Maria Remarque
Erich Maria Remarque
Erich Maria Remarque was a German author, best known for his novel All Quiet on the Western Front.-Life and work:...
, Hugo Ball
Hugo Ball
Hugo Ball was a German author, poet and one of the leading Dada artists.Hugo Ball was born in Pirmasens, Germany and was raised in a middle-class Catholic family. He studied sociology and philosophy at the universities of Munich and Heidelberg...
, Else Lasker-Schüler
Else Lasker-Schüler
Else Lasker-Schüler was a Jewish German poet and playwright famous for her bohemian lifestyle in Berlin. She was one of the few women affiliated with the Expressionist movement. Lasker-Schüler fled Nazi Germany and lived out the rest of her life in Jerusalem.-Biography:Schüler was born in...
, Stefan George
Stefan George
Stefan Anton George was a German poet, editor, and translator.-Biography:George was born in Bingen in Germany in 1868. He spent time in Paris, where he was among the writers and artists who attended the Tuesday soireés held by the poet Stéphane Mallarmé. He began to publish poetry in the 1890s,...
, Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan was a dancer, considered by many to be the creator of modern dance. Born in the United States, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. In the United States she was popular only in New York, and only later in her life...
, Carl Eugen Keel
Carl Eugen Keel
Carl Eugen Keel was a Swiss painter. He is principally known for his woodcuts, usually portraying town life, and often hand-coloured. Less well known are his oil paintings, watercolours, wood carvings and wrought iron sculptures.-References:...
, Paul Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
, Carlo Mense
Carlo Mense
Carlo Mense was a German artist, associated at various times with Rhenish Expressionism and New Objectivity.Mense was born in Rheine. He studied with Peter Janssen at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1906 to 1908, and then with Lovis Corinth at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin in 1909...
, Arnold Ehret
Arnold Ehret
Arnold Ehret was a German health educator and author of several books on diet, detoxification, fruitarianism, fasting, food combining, health, longevity, naturopathy, physical culture and vitalism.- Background :...
, Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
, Mary Wigman
Mary Wigman
Mary Wigman was a German dancer, choreographer, and dance instructor.A pioneer of expressionist dance, her work was hailed for bringing the deepest of existential experiences to the stage...
, Max Picard
Max Picard
Max Picard was a Swiss writer, important as one of the few thinkers writing from a deeply Platonic sensibility in the 20th century.-Selected books:...
, Ernst Toller
Ernst Toller
Ernst Toller was a left-wing German playwright, best known for his Expressionist plays and serving as President of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, for six days.- Biography :...
, Henry van de Velde
Henry van de Velde
Henry Clemens Van de Velde was a Belgian Flemish painter, architect and interior designer. Together with Victor Horta and Paul Hankar he could be considered one of the main founders and representatives of Art Nouveau in Belgium...
, Fanny zu Reventlow
Fanny zu Reventlow
Franziska Reventlow was a German writer, artist and translator, who became famous as the "Bohemian Countess" of Schwabing in the years leading up to World War I.- Life :Fanny...
, Rudolf Laban
Rudolf Laban
Rudolf von Laban aka Rudolf Laban was a dance artist and theorist whose work laid the foundations for Laban Movement Analysis and other more specific developments in dance notation...
, Frieda
Frieda von Richthofen
Frieda Freiin von Richthofen , a distant relative of the "Red Baron" Manfred von Richthofen, who is best known for her marriage to the British novelist D. H. Lawrence.-Life:...
and Else von Richthofen
Else von Richthofen
Else Freiin von Richthofen , a distant relative of the "Red Baron" Manfred von Richthofen, is known as one of the first female social scientists in Germany, wife of the German economist Edgar Jaffé as well as lover of the economists and sociologists Max Weber and Alfred Weber. Her sister Frieda von...
, Otto Gross
Otto Gross
Otto Gross was an Austrian psychoanalyst. A maverick early disciple of Sigmund Freud, he later became an anarchist and joined the utopian Ascona community.His father Hans Gross was a judge turned pioneering criminologist...
, Erich Mühsam
Erich Mühsam
Erich Mühsam was a German-Jewish anarchist essayist, poet and playwright. He emerged at the end of World War I as one of the leading agitators for a federated Bavarian Soviet Republic....
, Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach
Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach
Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach was a German painter and social reformer....
, Walter Segal
Walter Segal
Walter Segal was an architect who developed a system of self-build housing.The Segal method is based on traditional timber frame methods modified to use standard materials available today. It eliminates the need for wet trades such as bricklaying and plastering resulting in a light-weight methods...
, Max Weber, and Gustav Stresemann
Gustav Stresemann
was a German politician and statesman who served as Chancellor and Foreign Minister during the Weimar Republic. He was co-laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926.Stresemann's politics defy easy categorization...
; and Gustav Nagel.
From 1913 to 1918, Rudolf Laban
Rudolf Laban
Rudolf von Laban aka Rudolf Laban was a dance artist and theorist whose work laid the foundations for Laban Movement Analysis and other more specific developments in dance notation...
operated a "School for Art" on Monte Verità, and in 1917 Theodor Reuss
Theodor Reuss
Theodor Reuss was an Anglo-German tantric occultist, anarchist, police spy, journalist, singer, and promoter of Women's Liberation; and head of Ordo Templi Orientis.-Early years:...
, Master of the Ordo Templi Orientis
Ordo Templi Orientis
Ordo Templi Orientis is an international fraternal and religious organization founded at the beginning of the 20th century...
organized a conference there covering many themes, including societies without nationalism, women's rights, mystic freemasonry, and dance as art, ritual and religion.
From 1923 to 1926, Monte Verità was operated as a hotel by artists Werner Ackermann, Max Bethke and Hugo Wilkens, until it was acquired in 1926 by Baron Eduard von der Heydt. The following year, a new Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
-style hotel was built by Emil Fahrenkamp
Emil Fahrenkamp
Emil Fahrenkamp was a German architect and professor, one of the most prominent architects of the interwar period, best known for his 1930 Shell-Haus in Berlin....
. Eduard von der Heydt died in 1964, and the site became the property of the Canton of Ticino
Ticino
Canton Ticino or Ticino is the southernmost canton of Switzerland. Named after the Ticino river, it is the only canton in which Italian is the sole official language...
.
In 1992, after two years of renovations, the ETH Zurich
ETH Zurich
The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich or ETH Zürich is an engineering, science, technology, mathematics and management university in the City of Zurich, Switzerland....
conference facility, Centro Stefano Franscini was officially opened at the site.
The present day
Monte Verità is today home to the ETH ZurichETH Zurich
The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich or ETH Zürich is an engineering, science, technology, mathematics and management university in the City of Zurich, Switzerland....
conference facility, Centro Stefano Franscini, as well as a museum comprising three buildings: the Casa Anatta, a flat-roofed wooden building which served as headquarters to the vegetarian colony and now houses an exhibition of the history of the site; the Casa Selma, a small building which was used to house sun-bathers at the Sanatorium; and a building housing the panoramic painting
Panoramic painting
Panoramic paintings are massive artworks that reveal a wide, all-encompassing view of a particular subject, often a landscape, military battle, or historical event. They became especially popular in the 19th Century in Europe and the United States, inciting opposition from writers of Romantic poetry...
"The Clear World of the Blessed", by Elisar von Kupffer
Elisar von Kupffer
Elisar von Kupffer was an artist, anthologist, poet, historian, translator, and playwright. He used the pseudonym 'Elisarion' for much of his writing.He studied at St. Petersburg and then Berlin...
. The hill is also the site of a tea garden and Japanese teahouse.
In fiction
- A fictionalized version of the colony at Monte Verità is the subject of a short story named "Monte Verità" by the Cornish author Daphne du MaurierDaphne du MaurierDame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning DBE was a British author and playwright.Many of her works have been adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca and Jamaica Inn and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now". The first three were directed by Alfred Hitchcock.Her elder sister was...
which appeared in The Apple TreeThe Apple Tree (anthology)The Apple Tree is a collection of short stories by Daphne du Maurier published in 1952 by Gollancz in the UK, and under the title Kiss Me Again, Stranger by Doubleday in the US...
published in 1952, and then republished under the name The Birds and Other Stories. - A.S. Byatt's novel The Children's Book (2009) also mentions the colony as does Robert Dessaix's 1996 novel Night Letters.