Ittingen Charterhouse

By Felix Ackermann

The last monks left Ittingen Charterhouse in 1848. The buildings, which had been built over centuries, passed into the possession of the Canton of Thurgau and later private owners, who used them as a stately residence and model farm. Since 1977, the Ittingen Charterhouse Foundation has operated the complex as a cultural and meeting centre, which also houses two cantonal museums. The excellently preserved site provides a lively insight into the history of the place and its former inhabitants. The monks’ cells, cloister gardens and richly furnished rococo church allow visitors to form a direct impression of how the Carthusians perceived of themselves as hermits in the community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gesellschaft für Schweizerische Kunstgeschichte
• Release date: Mar 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9783037977675

Book preview

Felix Ackermann

Ittingen Charterhouse

Canton of Thurgau

Introduction

The location

The monastery walls

Within the walls

Outside the walls

History

From country estate to monastery

The monastery of the Augustinian canons

Ittingen as a charterhouse

After the dissolution of the monastery: from state ownership to a private farming estate

The Stiftung Kartause Ittingen and its partners

Premises

Areas of the monastery open to the general public

West wing

The large wine cellar

South wing

East wing

The monastery church

Architectural history

The choir stalls

Wall and ceiling frescoes

Stucco decoration

Altars

Appendix

South gate of the monastery, crowned with a statue of St Bruno, founder of the Carthusian order. To the left, the estate manager’s house, built in 1910 as an extension of the old monastery forge.

Introduction

The location

The Carthusian monastery in Ittingen is one of the most famous historical monastery complexes in Switzerland. A substantial portion of the buildings abandoned by the monks in 1848 has been preserved. The site has been open to the general public since 1983. The current owner, the Stiftung Kartause Ittingen, farms the land surrounding the monastery and runs a hotel with a conference centre and a restaurant in the complex itself. The Canton of Thurgau is responsible for the Ittinger Museum and the Kunstmuseum Thurgau, both of which are also housed in the building complex.

The monastery is situated about four kilometres to the northwest of the capital of the canton of Thurgau, Frauenfeld, on the road between the villages of Warth and Uesslingen, and is surrounded by woods, farming land and vineyards. The south-facing slopes stretching down to the Thur plain make this an attractive area for winegrowing: And it was thanks to its wine that the Ittingen Charterhouse became extremely prosperous in the 17th and 18th centuries. Nowadays, the monastery’s unspoiled and richly varied surroundings are part of the allure that makes Ittingen such an attractive destination for excursions.

The monastery walls

Monasteries were usually enclosed by a surrounding wall. These walls protected the community living within them, but they also had symbolic significance: Entering a monastery was regarded as ‘leaving the world behind’. The walls were thus also the symbolic boundaries between the realm dedicated to the worship of God and the outside world.

The surrounding walls of Ittingen Charterhouse are preserved in their entirety. The road between Warth and Uesslingen passes right along the monastery wall. The south gate, historically the main entrance to the complex, opens onto this road. The pediment of the gate bears a statue of St Bruno, the founder of the Carthusian order.

The wall to the right of the south gate is preserved in its original, closed-off state, its surface broken only by small barred openings. To the left of the gate, in contrast, a generously windowed, half-timber house juts out over the wall – this house was constructed in 1910, as an extension of what had been the monastery’s forge, during the period when Ittingen was a private farming estate.

There are other gates to the east and west which are still connected today, as they were in the past, by an almost straight path crossing through the grounds of the monastery.

Aerial photo of Ittingen Charterhouse from the south.

Within the walls

The south gate leads to the old monastery economic yard, nowadays the hub of a lively range of activities taking place within the complex. To the right the former stables stretch along the wall. These days they house a bar; the workshops of the Stiftung Kartause Ittingen; and the dairy. The building to the left, the converted monastery forge, serves as the reception area of the hotel. Further to the left, extending along the west face of the monastery wall, the immense former barn edifice now houses hotel rooms, conference and seminar rooms and the Ittingen Stiftung Kartause Ittingen shop. The ground slopes upwards to the north of the farmyard. There is an oval water basin partially embedded at the edge of this slope. In the records this ‘horse pond’, as it is referred to, was used to collect the water flowing from various sources, which could then be channelled to the mills situated below the road on the slopes down to the Thur plain.

The angled façade of the restaurant is visible to the right of the horse pond. It was constructed in this form in 2008/09. The dining areas of the restaurant were laid out in front of the old monastery mill and bakery buildings. There is a large fountain in front of the restaurant, the column of which is surmounted with a statue of St Lawrence, the