Kultura a památky v Brixenu

In 1256, the Winnebach Castle, also called Aschburg, was first mentioned in an official document. The castle was originally owned by the Rodank family of Asch. Part of the dungeon was still there about 50 years ago, and in the middle of the tower an imposing, giant and legendary spruce grew. A local wanted to search for the legendary gold treasure in Aschburg Castle around 1970, and thereby blew up the entire tower. According to the legend, Arnold V. von Schöneck constructed the castle as a hunting castle. It is believed, that at the end of their lives, the Schöneck sons were cruel men who attacked and plundered the people. For this reason the castle is also called the Thieves Castle by locals. Starting point: car park in the village center

The Rienza ravine, a wild-romantic gorge with former power plant (not open for visits).

The Holy Trinity Church in Kollmann was previously called the customs chapel and was connected to the customs office by a wooden walkway. The church itself was built around 1588 and nearly destroyed by a fire in 1938. In the meantime, it has been renovated. It is open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Holy Mass: Sunday at 8:30 clock or 10:00 clock (german)

A sports ground with an outdoor and indoor pool, the Aquarena, was built north of the Bressanone Old Town. It is the result of a competition provided for the extension, which was to include a music school, underground parking and an indoor climbing gym; the latter has now been built. The climbing gym had to be of a certain height: a cube that is highly visible amongst the surrounding buildings thus emerged, which can also be viewed as a landmark. It not only affords good views of the city, but also allows one to see into the hall, and meets ecological considerations. The reinforced concrete structure, which has a steel-and-glass façade, also has a second façade level of corrugated gold-colored perforated plate elements that give the interior soft light without harsh shadows. The hall is accessed along a monumental staircase, which is also planned to serve as the entrance to the music school that will be built next door.

The skiing and hiking area Plose is a popular winter and summer destination for all sports and nature lovers. The cosy cabins invite you to stop for a bite to eat and offer local delicacies for every taste.

Only 7 km from the town of Brixen, Plose is one of the sunniest ski resorts in South Tyrol and has a lot to offer. Skiers, tobogganists and hikers will find the perfect winter experience along the sunny slopes with a wonderful view of the UNESCO World Heritage Dolomites.

In summer the Plose offers countless possibilities. The varied hiking routes offer the right thing for families, summit climbers and pleasure hikers. For all those who love adventure, there is the new Brixen Bikepark, which has something for beginners, professionals and families. Not on 2 but on 3 wheels you can jet down the Plose with the MountainCarts.

Although consecrated in 1281, St. Margaretha, the late Gothic parish curch in Schabs was only completed in 1454. By the end of the eighteen century its interior had been reconstructed in Baroque style with its poral framed in Stone. It is worth noting that the 72 m bell-Tower is unusually tall and narrow.

The chapel Floriani is located directly on the village square next to the church.

Directly along the bike route into the Pusteria Valley you’ll find Lanz Bike Station, next to the busy street, right at the entrance to the valley. Due to its extremely convenient location the station has also developed into a popular meeting place for vehicle drivers, who find ample parking here. An elongated structure made of plastered reinforced concrete has been created out of an earlier makeshift wooden vendor stand, which is set into the steep hillside. The owner of the station is so connected to it that he had his own house built as a white cube with terrace on the roof of the ground-floor service area. The residence is decorated in a varied way: floor-to-ceiling glass walls for the sales and guest areas, a sheltered garden courtyard and adjoining rooms that seem to be closed off. Everything is painted in gray-brown earth tones in order to emphasize the integration into the area.

The building is situated in a key position on the edge of town. It forms a gateway  between the historical series of façades and the newer neighboring buildings. It is a clear and contemporary structure that asserts itself within its environment, plays with the proportions of the surrounding buildings, and generates excitement through its cubic nesting. The reinforced concrete construction, coated with special weather-resistant plaster, allows for large projections and recesses in the three-story building structure. As a result, open spaces are created in front of the hotel rooms, some of which are illuminated above like little yards, and thus feel very protected and intimate. Another roof opening also allows daylight into the interior of the building. The planted roof terrace offers a beautiful view over the rooftops of the city and onto the mountains around Bressanone's valley basin.

Galerie Hofburg is a meeting point for the lovers of art in all its facets. Particularly, we pay much attention to the figurines for Christmas cribs. The collection, gathered by Jacob Kompatscher, includes figurines for Christmas cribs, complete Nativity scenes, wooden sculptures, sculptures and paintings of famous local and international artists, such as Angela Tripi, Adriano Colombo and Leo Demetez.

For over twenty years, Jakob Kompatscher has been passionately devoting himself to art in all its facets. Native of Brixen, Jakob is a son of Master bookbinder Walter Kompatscher (*1934) and a great-grandson of homonymous Jakob Kompatscher who founded one of the most ancient bookbinderies in Brixen.

The Neustift vineyards have distinctive long, dry stone walls. There is a group of three-family houses that rises up out of these stone walls. The wooden construction of the larger building rests on a ground floor made of stone work; the smaller building is an all-wooden structure sitting on terraces built from dry stone walls. An open expanse of garden stretches between them with a naturally formed pond. The slanting exterior walls that rise up, covered in wooden slat, are designed to protect the facade from driving rain. Windows are cut deep into this slanting wall, forming loggias. The interior reveals an unusual, imaginative sequence of rooms with white and partially colorful walls, and many wooden structures. The construction manager covers the heating requirements of both houses with waste wood from his carpentry business.

The pharmacy museum housed in the Apotheke Peer is housed in one of the oldest private residences in Bressanone/Brixen. The display windows and the entrances with their dark metal outlines and steel plates were very carefully inserted into the plastered front of the ground floor. A passageway leads to the museum, where elegant display cabinets with dark metal frames are to be found under the gothic arches. The historical structure with its staircases leading to the upper floors was worked upon, and simple modern details were added, which are instantly recognizable. This has also occurred in the partly historically paneled exhibition rooms, in which 400 years of pharmaceutical history is presented in modern, carefully detailed glass display cases.

Situated in the park of the Baroque seminary, Cusanus Academy emerged as a widely acclaimed South Tyrolean pioneer project in postwar architecture. The three-story building closes the courtyard, urbanistically speaking, behind the historical seminary building with the church. It interpreted a theme of Bressanone’s Old Town in a contemporary way: arcades and bays run down the whole length of the eastern facade. The materials, exposed concrete and hard-burnt brick, consistently shape both the outer shell and the interiors with a quality that, even half a century later, shows no structural damage. In the center of the building is a large hall from which all the spaces on the upper floors are accessed via galleries. Because it has good acoustics the hall is often used as a large lecture room. It is vaulted and has a structurally interesting exposed concrete ceiling, the arches of which give the space good illumination.

The church of Barbian was built in the 13th century consecrated to the apostle and patron Saint Jacob. Today the only remaining of the old church is he bell tower. The church was constructed in a Romanesque style and in the year 1472 it obtained Gothic elements. In 1874 – 1877 the Neo-Romanesque nave was added to the Gothic main body (today’s sacristy). The inclination of the campanile is attributed to the different grounding on which the tower was built. The half on the downhill side lies on the unstable soil of the Central Uplands and the other half on solid quartz-phillite-rocks. Ing. Fulvio Pisetta carried out a mechanical intervention in 1985 – 1988 to assure the stability of the church tower. Height: 37,00 metres Inclination: 1,56 metres

One wrote the year 1494 as the young artist ALBRECHT DÜRER made a stop in Klausen during his Italy journey. Today a beautiful walk leads to these slopes from Klausen. From this promising place the painter drew the city of Klausen. The result of its feather was lost later, but a copper engraving "Das große Glück" ( the great fortune) is delivered: Klausen calls itself also the "Small Dürer Town": Who wants to visit this place, goes today to the "Dürerstein".

This unusual house is situated amongst a quite standard new village architecture. It consists of two sections: one constructed from parts of a 300-year-old farmhouse in which the farmer's and architect's family have been living for centuries, and another new building that crouches under the large tree trunks. The idea to live under mounted tree trunks came to the architect when he was a child playing in the woods, and he subsequently made it a reality. The stacked, untreated tree trunks do not hide a dingy living space beneath, but rather glass walls and openings that create an artful play of light when inside. In addition many other materials were used, from rough concrete mixed with glass shards to the extremely shiny stainless steel kitchen. A highly imaginative design here from the architect.

In commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the struggle for the Liberation of Tyrol, the Company of traditional marksmen from Schabs, built the Chapel of the Sacred Heart in 1984. The chapel is located northwest of Schabs, on the way to Viums.

A display board in the Rienzschlucht gorge provides information on the 11-km long natural pressure water system of Lüsen, which was constructed on the high plateau in the 1950s. Thanks to this pioneering work, life on the high plateau was changed fundamentally. From a poor arid region, it turned into a thriving landscape anda bustling tourist destination.

In 1983, a fountain was built in honor of the founder of the soil improvement consortium on the High Apple Plateau of Natz, Mr. Jakob Auer Flötscher. The fountain in the center of Natz displays his bust in bronze. Auer was a pioneer of environmentalism, as he was the driving force in the construction of a natural pressure water system, which has provided the high plateau with fresh water ever since.

 

Natz is the original seat of the ancient Natz parish from the Carolingian period. The curch was built in 1208 in the late Gothic style, commissioned by the Prince-Archbishop Konrad and consecrated in honor of St. Philip and St. Walburga. The tower was built from 1,400 granite blocks. The wooden sculptures that decorate the neo-Gothic main altar date back to 1470 and were influenced by the famous Artist Michael Pacher.

The Astra Cultural Center reopened to the public in October 2019 after extensive renovations. Built in 1936 as la Casa del Balilla by the architect duo Mansutti and Miozzo, it became the GIL (Gioventù Italiana del Littorio) in 1937. After phases of different uses, it operated as a German-language cinema until 2011, when it was finally closed. It waited a few year for its destiny, today it is stage for many cultural events and main venue of the Film Club of Bressanone.

The succursal church of St. Ägidius in Raas is a late-Gothic building, and was completed by the constructor Thomas Maurer in 1532. The neo-Gothic interior mostly dates from around 1880. On the high altar, one can see St. Ägidius, the patron of the church and the protector of viticulture. In Raas, the now rare custom of the bread donation and bread distribution is still practised on the day of the church patron in September.

The University of Bolzano’s Faculty of Education was built in Bressanone/Brixen. At first glance, the rigid modern architecture may be jarring opposite the Bishop's Palace, but its urban development and architectural qualities evolve upon closer examination. The square building corresponds approximately to the dimensions of the Bishop's Palace, and Bressanone’s Lauben arcade motif recurs on the ground floor, underneath the three glazed upper floors of offices. For its structure, the inner courtyard takes up the alleyways and atriums of the Bressanone Old Town. The materials used for the exterior and interior are consistently reduced to glass and concrete. The cool impression of the interior spaces fits in with the intentionally quiet, almost monastic educational system.

Its successful scale, the distribution of its building volumes and its integration into the site unite the new building so harmoniously with the village structure that one would think it had been standing there since ever. Only upon second glance does one notice that the architecture is a reinterpretation of South Tyrolean residential construction forms ̶  without the Alpine decor. Pitched roofs atop solid plastered masonry with perforated facades and the construction raising from the ground, without a plinth, carry forward this architectural tradition. The building’s connecting components, made of glass and with carefully designed details, are thematic of our time; the woodwork, meanwhile, carries on the traditions of local carpenters and woodcarvers. All this results in a child-friendly environment, with an atmosphere that appears self-evident and a high comfort factor.

The church, situated on a hill in Viums, was consecrated in 1281 and is considered as the most beautiful shrine in the surroundings. The present church construction dates from 1500 and was build on the fundament of a church, the expansion of the tower happened in the 17th century.

The Mineral Museum is the private collection of Markus Klement (*10 April 1963, Brixen). With over 1,500 specimens on display from 50 different countries, it is one of the largest collections of such kind in the European Alps.

holy grave open to Easter the holy grave ist  uniquely in South Tyrol

The gothical building was established between 1467 and 1470 of master Jörg. From the outside on recognize the simple portal, the small pyramid-shaped ridge turret and that gothical five-eighth choir with the four windows.

Monastery of Novacella was founded by the blessed bishop Hartmann in 1142 as an Augustinian monastery. Thanks to its monastery school it became one of the most important centre of education and art. In 1742 the monastery was the largest in Tyrol, the Romanesque abbey church of Abbazia di Novacella was redesigned in Baroque style. Unique at  the monastery of Novacella is the round building of Castello dell'Angelo, former hostel and defence facility. The Gothic cloister benefits from valuable frescoes, while the well in the courtyard depicts the wonders of the world. The 8th wonder is said to be Novacella. The Rococo library of the monastery  of Novacella is uniquely beautiful, the Pinacoteca houses medieval paintings by outstanding masters Michael and Friedrich Pacher and Marx Reichlich. The Turkish wall dates back to turbulent times. The mill, water buildings and wine cellar point to the economic importance of the monastery. The area around the monastery is the northernmost winegrowing region of Italy with the well-known white wines Sylvaner, Müller-Thurgau and Kerner.

Other information about the monastery of Novacella

Visit without guide from Monday to Saturday from 10:00am to 5:00pm

The historical garden: The historical garden is situated at the entrance to the monastery complex. It reopened in summer 2004 following extensive restoration work. The monastery garden can be visited indipendently from Thuersday to Saturday from 10:00 am until 5:00 pm

The monastery of Novacella is closed on Sundays and Catholic Holidays. 

On the edge of the slope ending at Rodeneck Castle over the Rienz river, lies a white cubic building visible from afar. The three-story building houses a youth and workroom on the ground floor, and is accessed from the outside by a vast ramp. The entrance hall has a stunning view over the valley. The canteen is on this level and the classrooms are situated on the upper floors. The building, made of concrete, is roughly plastered on the outside and has evenly spaced large windows, their smooth, white frames calmly decorate the facade. Even the interior spaces have been kept purely white; only the red rubber flooring and the yellow tiled bathrooms add color to the school, which also has a self-contained kindergarten.

Was this a stone for witches? Was it a fertility stone? Or was it, at the very least, a pre-Christian place of worship? This very interesting stone is a bowl-stone. According to the narrations of old locals, on this stone, the witches used to dance with the devil. Their foot imprints can still be seen. Old dairy farmers say, that not only did the witch meetings take place there, but drinking sessions during the nights of the summer solstice also took place. The water source near the stone draws us to the conclusion that this stone had something to do with the fertility cult. Starting point: Terento-Terenten - parking place "Val Vena"