Dornach - a tour around the Goetheanum - Liebe zur Erde

The Goetheanum in Dornach

is a remarkable building, it looks from a distance like a fortress in the landscape and integrates itself into the Jura mountains towering behind them - but harmonious, yes - taking their the forms as it seems. By Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) designed, it opened in 1928, a south-cast concrete building in the Jura Mountains of Basel in Switzerland. The building was among the first cast in concrete buildings. The sufficient doubly curved surfaces of the casings were a novelty in those days. The Goetheanum is the headquarters of the General Anthroposophical Society and the School of Spiritual Science and its Sections.


















The Goetheanum is a frequented international meeting point, in its immediate vicinity there are several training institutes and it is understood as a meeting place for people from all over the world who gather there during  conferences, go through training or attend individual performances, or just roam the grounds.


Who is doing the latter may perceive a strange atmosphere of lively silence that has very alive and very relaxing effect on many visitors. On parts of the grounds biodynamic farming is done, elsewhere are medicinal plants and a herd of cows and their calves graze on the beds of the large green spaces in the summer. Everywhere, benches invite you to linger.

The outbuildings on the site:

Wherever the eye wanders too - all the so-called annex touch with their architecture. Rudolf Steiner's concern was that the shape of an object, may express its kind and its function.




So one might win the impression that the boiler house (right) mimic the shapes of the chimney, the rising of the smoke: in the beginning of last century it was heated with coals.

Many doors, windows and roofs take similar curves and through its resemblance bear a memory  to that in the 1921 burned first Goetheanum, this was a double dome construction made entirely of wood.





The so-called glass house in which the colored glass windows were then shaped gives a little glimpse of the design in Miniature:

In addition to the leafy path down here on the left is the almost 100-year-old carpenter (bottom right), which is now used as a meeting room. Right to it is the former studio of Rudolf Steiner, which was converted into a memorial room.


        


Works of art adorn the grounds and also in the Goetheanum there are often exhibitions on specific topics or by certain artists.

        







The enormous size of the Goetheanum and the massive, yet almost weightless forms become in their nature only visible at close range. The bottom right image is the Duldeck house, there is housed the Rudolf Steiner archive.

Inside the Goetheanum

The interiors within the Goetheanum have been in recent years more and more enchanted with the colors. Also this area is dominated by curves and soft edges - in spite of tough building materials. The play of light in the stairwells between light and dark, and the colors of the rainbow unfold along a nearly weightless effect of inner vitality.

The large hall in the Goetheanum several years ago was redesigned and now enchant by the colorfulness of the painted ceilings and the light color of the window.
2 are listed here as examples:











Before the great hall is the so-called big red window, including the exit to the terrace - once from inside, once pictured from outside.




 



Finally, a few links:

Homepage of the Goetheanum:............ http://www.goetheanum.org/
Calendar of events:...............................http://www.goetheanum.org/vk.html
Courses at the Goetheanum:................. http://www.goetheanum.org/3304.html
Trainings in Dornach:............................. http://www.goetheanum.org/930.html
the Rudolf Steiner Archive:....................http://www.rudolf-steiner.com/


In the immediate vicinity of the Goetheanum, there are various medical trainings (eurythmy at the Goetheanum, Ita Wegman Clinic: training in anthroposophic nursing; training in Rhythmic massage school for Rhythmical Massage by Dr. Ita Wegman; College for anthroposophical curative education, social education and social therapy (HFHS )) Schools (Arteum-painting school; Assenza-Painting School, Free School of Painting Dornach Painting School at the Goetheanum, plastic school and training and employment center for plastic art therapy;) Eurythmy (Academy for Eurythmy Art Basel Country; Eurythmeum Elena Zuccoli), the Anthroposophical Academy therapy and art education and training for speech and the Academy of anthroposophical pedagogy (AFAP). The addresses can be found at the link listed next above to the last link.