 | You can helpexpand this article with text translated fromthe corresponding article in German. (May 2024)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
| Dominican Convent, Ilanz | |
|---|---|
Kloster Ilanz | |
 The convent church at Ilanz | |
  Ilanz Location of the Dominican Convent at Ilanz, west of Chur | |
| General information | |
| Location | Ilanz,GR,Switzerland |
| Coordinates | 46°46′38.7″N9°11′57.7″E / 46.777417°N 9.199361°E /46.777417; 9.199361 |
TheDominican Convent, Ilanz, the motherhouse of the Congregation of theIlanz Dominican Sisters (German:Ilanzer Dominikanerinnen), is located on a low hillside across the valley fromthe little town, roughly 30 km (20 miles) to the west ofChur in thecanton of Graubünden,Switzerland.[1]
The striking convent buildings date from the early 1970s,[2] but the community traces its origins back to St. Joseph's Institute, founded with an educational remit at Ilanz in 1865.[3] Today thesisters at Ilanz are the core element of an international community comprising around 160 sisters, members of one of a number of congregations of Ilanz Dominican Sisters operating from addresses in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. Outside Europe there is also one congregation in Brazil and another in Taiwan.[4]
The community recognises two founders, Johann Fidel Depuoz (1817-1875), born inGraubünden, and Babette Gasteyer (1835-1892), born far to the north, inWiesbaden.[5]
Johann Fidel Depuoz became aJesuit in 1840, received an appropriate training intheology, and was ordained. For twenty years he travelled abroad, visitingSavoy,Maryland (USA),Liège,Münster, southern Germany,Solferino,Padua andRagusa (as Dubrovnik was then called). Church-state conflict was a feature of the pontificate ofPope Pius IX, and in 1874, theJesuits were officially banned acrossSwitzerland, as part of a widerKulturkampf which traditional English language history sometimes perceives as a purely German clash. (The Swiss ban on Jesuits was not lifted until 1973 when the matter was resolved with a referendum.) Depuoz resigned from the Jesuits and returned toSurselva, his home district, keen to support education and attend to social deprivation in what was at that time a remote and under-developed part of Switzerland. Also around this time he obtained a doctorate in theology from Rome. During the third quarter of the nineteenth century he ministered energetically inChur,Schluein and finally inIlanz as a pastor and educator. In 1865, Dr Depuoz opened the educational St Joseph's Institute in Ilanz, reflecting his particular concern for the education of the young.[3] The other principal priority at the outset was provision of professional-level hospital services for the sick of the Surselva district.
Babette Gasteyer received her training inWiesbaden and then started out as an educationalist, working at aristocratic houses in what are now Germany, Austria and Moravia, also at times working as a nurse. In 1866 she was recruited as a teacher by Depuoz. In the convent she had thereligious name Maria Theresia Gasteyer.[3] It was she who led and sustained the congregation as its first mother superior, through the difficult early years.[5]
Adherence of the Ilanz community to theDominican Order was subsequently discussed, and formally implemented in 1894 when a Dominican took over leadership of the community, following mediation involving the Catholic-ConservativeNational Assembly member,Caspar Decurtins.[6]
Activities expanded during the first half of the twentieth century. As well as the Institute School and the hospital, from 1940 the sisters were running the Graubünden Academy for nursing as well as a school for (female) farmers. They were also working in the Ilanz kindergarten and primary school and conductingcatechesis in the parish. In thecantonal capital to the east the sisters were running both a secondary school and acommercial school [de] (Handelsschule). In many of the little towns and villages of rural Graubünden they were working in the kindergartens, and providing residential care homes for the frail and elderly inSedrun,Trun andDavos (where the facility also served as a convalescent home).
The Ilanz Dominican Sisters were also present in several of the big cities in Switzerland's central belt, running the Sanitasspital (hospital) inZürich (later relocated to nearbyKilchberg) and district kindergartens in several quarters of the city and additional operational centres further to the west inBasel andFribourg. To the east, inAustria, they were active inSchruns with an agricultural college and a hospital and inSalzburg in providing care for the elderly. In Germany the Ilanz Dominican Sisters had daughter communities inDüsseldorf,Walberberg,Erkelenz andSchwichteler. Closer to home, across theBodensee inLindau they ran another old people's home. InVechta inLower Saxony there was a missionary centre with its own printing shop and a Dominican boarding school. Outside Europe, in 1922 missionary centres were set up inFujian in mainland China, and inTaiwan across the water. There is another centre inItapetininga, Brazil.
Societal changes in the second half of the twentieth century changed the focus of the Ilanz Dominican Sisters. Important community institutions came under public control,[7] including in 1973 the hospital in Ilanz and the nursing academy (which subsequently, in 2011, was simply abolished by the cantonal authorities).
Located up a gentle hillside on the left bank of theRhine, the present convent complex was built to a design produced in 1969 byWalter Moser, the Zürich-based architect responsible for the design of 17 monasteries built across Switzerland in the modern style since 1960.
The four principal elements of the complex are the convent itself, the convent church, the meeting hall ("Haus der Begegnung") and a school that now accommodates the SurselvaHandelsschule. TheHaus der Begegnung itself includes a single- and double-sized class room, its own kitchen, a meditation room and an auditorium able to accommodate up to 200 people.
The convent church is positioned at the heart of the complex. It has seating for 300. The architect Walter Moser has produced a contemplative white-walled interior, reminiscent in some of its elements of the work ofLe Corbusier. Daylight enters through window apertures of varying sizes. The altar area, set one step above the rest of the church, is surrounded on three sides by benches. The altar,ambon andtabernacle, along with the seat for the officiating priest, are formed from Swiss Cristallina marble by the Zürich sculptor Alfred Huber (1908–1982). The front of the otherwise unadorned marble altar is faced with an inset relief of a wine cup.
An arcade runs along an inner wall of the church, supported by twelve pillars, each of which incorporates a candle, recalling the twelve apostles as "pillars of the church". The ceiling has been painted byMax Rüedi [de] from Zürich with "undulating moving ribbons" ("wellig bewegten Farbbändern").[8]
The twelve stained glass windows made by Max Rüedi together comprise an important feature in the overall design of the convent church.
The organ is positioned on the south wall of the monastery church in three niches of differing heights. The instrument was built in 1972 byMathis Orgelbau [de] ofNäfels inthe adjacent canton. The commissioning and disposition particulars for the organ were drawn up by K. Kolly of Neuendorf.