Dornach: In the Footsteps of Rudolf Steiner

Abstract

When the New Age philosopher Dr Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) arrived at the Dornach hill, a short tram ride from Basel, Switzerland, it offered virtually a tabula rasa for his creative genius. Over the next little more than a decade (beginning 1913), Steiner populated this landscape with a multitude of new buildings in his unique organic architecture style. Having settled on Dornach as the site for his Anthroposophy headquarters with its centrepiece structure, the Goetheanum (the name came later), a colony of adherents, devotees, seekers, disciples, artists and artisans were drawn to Dornach. The integrity of the precinct has been maintained for a century and a visitor treading the hill will be in the footsteps of Rudolf Steiner and seeing his Anthropop colony much as he witnessed it in his own time. The buildings of the precinct range from the grand (the Goetheanum), the bold (Haus Duldeck), the curvaceous (the Glass House), the quaint (Haus Vreede), the ugly (Haus de Jaager), the utilitarian (the Schrenerei), the basic (the Atelier), the fanciful (Transformatorenhaus), the phallic (Heizhaus), and the monastic (Eurythmiehaus). Many tastes (and budgets) were catered for as Rudolf Steiner explored and invented his organic architectural style. Nearly a century after his death there are now more than 180 Anthropop buildings within the greater Goetheanum precinct, including the nearby villages of Dornach and Arlesheim. The present paper presents 21 views of the greater Goetheanum precinct. The building start dates are specified. Many of the buildings were designed by Rudolf Steiner (those are asterisked).