Seekers of Truth.

Hermann Hesse and Monte Verit The Hermann Hesse Museum, Montagnola, Switzerland

Seekers of Truth. Hermann Hesse and Monte Verit

1. The Community Monte Verit Monte Verit was founded at the beginning of the 20th century by the German Ida Hofmann, her partner, the Belgian Henry Oedenkoven, and two German brothers who followed them, but soon departed as they had different points of view. The original idea was to offer medical treatment for the illness caused by civilization, through a radical lifestyle closer to nature. Guests paid for a rigorous life, which meant freedom from many social constraints but, at the same time, deprivation of many modern comforts. Monte Verit was financed by Henrys parents, but after several attempts to make the community financially successful, in 1920 it had to close down; it was reopened again in 1926 as a luxury clinic, and today it is a conference centre which several Swiss institutions make use of. 1.1. The Place for a New Life Monte Verit was the name given by the founders of the community to a stately hill near Ascona, called Monescia. In 1900, the founding group, formed by Ida Hofmann, Henry Oedenkoven, the brothers Karl and Gustav Grser, and Lotte Hattemer, daughter of a Prussian official, were looking for a beautiful natural landscape where they could start a new life. After being on a walking tour in Northern Italy and Ticino, Ida and Henry decided to stop near Ascona. In 1900 nothing was there but nature, and this was exactly what they were looking for: a beautiful spot, unspoiled by civilization, where new houses could be built. 1.2. The Founders The founders of the Monte Verit community were Ida Hofmann and Henry Oedenkoven, the Grser brothers, Gustav and Karl, and Lotte Hattemer, daughter of a Prussian official. Ida and Henry had in mind a health care institution, where ill or troubled people could spend some time away from civilization in order to recover and be able to get back to normal life; whereas Gustav and Karl Grser were looking for a new society, free from money and constraints. After one year, the Grser brothers, who had diverging views on how the community should be run, decided to go different ways. Karl Grser left the Mountain to live in a hut he built in the nearby wood, while Gustav Grser started wandering around from house to house, to sell his messages, written on small pieces of paper. Ida and Henry created the buildings of Monte Verit and ran the community in their own way. 1.3. The Art of Living at Monte Verit Monte Verit was never conceived as a clinic for medical treatment only. There was an underlying philosophy of life that guests were supposed to share. Such radical approach concerned all aspects of lifestyle: food, housing, ways of dressing, contact with nature or relationship with other people. Everything had to be very close to nature: there was no heating, for example, and the food had to be strictly vegetarian. In several aspects, the lifestyle of Monte Verit represents a surprising anticipation of the flower children, the hippies, or similar movements that became popular 60 years later in North America. 1.4. The Initial Period, Decadence and Renewal Henry Oedenkoven had very wealthy parents, who financed the starting of the community Monte Verit. However, fees from the guests were never enough to pay the expenses, even though the founders tried to loosen their rigorous approach to attract more people. Money failed to come along and by the 1920s everything was over. In 1923 the place was sold to three artists who wanted to found an expressionist community, but abandoned it after two years. In 1926, the banker Eduard
A joint project by: TEC-Lab, University of Lugano and the HOC Laboratory, Politecnico di Milano 1

Seekers of Truth. Hermann Hesse and Monte Verit The Hermann Hesse Museum, Montagnola, Switzerland

von der Heydt took over and converted Monte Verit into a luxury clinic, with the addition of a new hotel, a Bauhaus style building that replaced the old Central House. 1.5. Monte Verit Today Today Monte Verit is a centre which holds academic and scientific meetings. The foundation Monte Verit, created in the 1990s by the Canton Ticino, the Ascona Town Council and the two federal Polytechnics of Zurich and Lausanne, oversees the development of a conference centre in the former premises of the vegetabilist community. Many historical buildings, like the Russians House, have been preserved, while others have been restored and are still in use today, like the Anatta House, the Semiramis villa and the hotel built by baron von der Heydt, in Bauhaus style. From 1981, the Anatta House hosts the permanent exhibition The Breasts of Truth, created by Harald Szeemann.

2. Early Years: 1900 1920 When it was founded, at the beginning of the 20th century, outsiders from all Europe made their way to Monte Verit: artists, philosophers, people in search of inspiration. This made Monte Verit a place full of very interesting personalities! The rules were very strict in the first years: no central heating, no cooked food, a diet based exclusively on fruit and vegetables. However Ida Hofmann, the main mind behind the community, was a good manager and soon understood that if she wanted people to come, she had to offer more: after 5 years milk was allowed and after 10 years one could have even a bit of meat, on request. Central heating was introduced, doctors were specifically employed for looking after the dwellers health. 2.1. Air and Light Huts Monte Verit was made up of 15 huts and the Central House, called Sanatorium, where Ida Hofmannn and Henry Oedenkoven lived, with spaces for reading and rooms for rental. The huts were made of wood, at the beginning with no central heating; they could be rented by anyone, and the privacy inside the huts was not questioned by anybody. Few traces of the original huts remain; among these, there are some interesting watercolours painted by the cook at Monte Verit. He was not a great artist, but his drawings give an idea of what the original Monte Verit looked like. 2.2. The vegetabilist Society The Monte Verit community, under the guidance of Ida Hofmann, had strict rules regarding the lifestyle to follow, especially related to the diet: food had to be very simple and natural, nothing cooked, only fruit and vegetables. The philosophy behind these rules was not moralistic: they thought it was healthier for the body. Thus, they formed the first vegetabilist society, an even more rigid form of vegetarianism. The statutes of the community explain that vegetabilism is to live in harmony with the rules of the nature. This rigidity had to be loosened in the following years in order to attract more guests. They added milk, butter and in the end, even meat on request. 2.3 Life in the Colony The guests had unlimited privacy. They could meet the other guests for meals or eat alone in their huts. In the air and light baths, divided by sex, guests could take off their clothes and take part in the sun cult naked. A complete treatment for the first 30 days amounted to 100 francs, the equivalent of 60/70 euros today. After the first thirty days, the treatment was paid with 3 francs per day. The statutes promoted the treatments with no medicines, with no surgical interventions, based on a vegetarian diet, contact with nature and physical activities such as working on the land, mountain climbing and rowing.

A joint project by: TEC-Lab, University of Lugano and the HOC Laboratory, Politecnico di Milano 2

Seekers of Truth. Hermann Hesse and Monte Verit The Hermann Hesse Museum, Montagnola, Switzerland

2.4. Clothing An important aspect was clothing. In 1900, women were still wearing uncomfortable and cumbersome corset-gowns. Men of a certain social level also had a strict dress code to stick to. Ida and Henry freed people living at Monte Verit from these constraints. In the community, people went around barefoot, with large, white, wool or linen clothes, women could wear no bras and go around with bare arms. The way people in the community dressed at that time was in itself a revolution!

3. Dwellers of Monte Verit Several famous and charismatic personalities made their way to Monte Verit. Ida Hofmann was the true founder, with her partner, Henry Oedenkoven. Poets, artists, politicians, doctors, writers frequented the place: Otto Gross, initiator of a sexual revolution ante litteram, the Grser brothers, who dedicated themselves to a simple, almost unrestrained life, Erich Mhsam, follower of the Communist dream, the Italian-Swiss painter Filippo Franzoni, Rudolf von Laban, founder of a dance school that bears his name until today, which fostered harmony of body and spirit through movement. 3.1. Personalities The founders of Monte Verit were Ida Hofmann, a pianist and teacher that lived in Monaco, Henry Oedenkoven, the son of wealthy industrialists, and the brothers Karl and Gustav Grser, with no money and no profession. The young Prussian Lotte Hattemer joined the group in the early years of the community. Guests had been innumerable, many of whom renowned until today: Hermann Hesse; Franziska von Reventlow, a feminist writer; Erich Mhsam, writer, poet and communist thinker; Otto Gross, psychologist; the painter Filippo Franzoni, from Locarno, one of the most famous local frequenters at Monte Verit; Rudolf von Laban, initiator of a dance school and his student and future dance teacher herself, Mary Wigman. Monte Verit guests were mostly wealthy people, longing for relaxation and healing; others were seeking new experiences and an alternative life to the routine of bourgeois life. 3.2. Ida Hofmann The mind behind Monte Verit was Ida Hofmann. Her companion, Henry Oedenkoven, who had health problems, deliberately followed a vegetarian diet, but it was Ida who elaborated the philosophy behind this project. She wrote a book about Monte Verit, Monte Verit. Truth with no poetry and one about her views on lifestyle and health, Vegetabilismus! Vegetarismus!. In 1915 the couple split up; Henry continued to live in the same house as Ida but with another woman. All three went first to Spain and afterwards to Brazil, where they founded a new vegetarian society. Ida Hofmann died in Brazil in 1926. 3.3. Otto Gross and the Sexual Revolution Otto Gross is a character linked to the history and philosophy of Monte Verit in a very particular way. He was a psychiatrist with very liberal views; already in 1904, he expressed ideas on sexual freedom, against monogamy and marriage, which represented a revolution for the social conventions of that time. In this way he contributed to the fame of Monte Verit as an immoral place. He had a relationship with two sisters, Else and Frieda Richthofen. In a letter to one of the two sisters, he does not refrain from revealing his feelings for the other sister: Now I am with Else deep love and deep sorrow I have learnt to love her as never before [...], she is great and noble and loves you so deeply. 3.4. The Anarchic Gustav Grser A man of incredible charisma, Gustav Grser is still regarded as a guru, a self-made prophet. He was living at Monte Verit like a savage, with his wife and seven children. He went around selling
A joint project by: TEC-Lab, University of Lugano and the HOC Laboratory, Politecnico di Milano 3

Seekers of Truth. Hermann Hesse and Monte Verit The Hermann Hesse Museum, Montagnola, Switzerland

pearls of wisdom on nature, life and truth, in exchange for food. Ida Hofmann had mixed feelings about him. Like a shadow, from Monaco, this man has followed our track; persistently invasive, (..), he has such an unpleasant effect on his entourage. Yet she also recalls events of children sitting on his lap and looking up to him as if he were Jesus. Gustav left Ascona in 1909, travelled around Switzerland, returned to Germany, and participated in seminars and conferences where he could act as a missionary man and a preacher. 3.5. Karl Grser and the Simple Life Gustav Grsers brother, Karl, was more modest and more serious. He believed in simple life and lived according to his creed: working, making his own furniture, his own knives and forks, bed and chairs from unfinished wood, leaving roots and branches as they were. He did not buy anything, since he lived on what he could produce himself. His clothes were made of raw wool. He was living with his wife in a hut at Monte Verit, where they stayed for quite a long time. Erich Mhsam had a high opinion of him: Grser is the first human being I have ever met who puts into practice, with complete coherence, what he judges to be right at a theoretical level. 3.6. Erich Mhsam and the Communist Dream Erich Mhsam, writer, poet and political thinker, had an elaborate dream of founding a communist society. When he met Ida Hofmann and Henry Oedenkoven, he thought that Monte Verit could be a starting point for the social reform he had in mind. Between 1904 and 1908 he went to Monte Verit several times. Finally, Mhsam realized that in reality the community was far from his idealistic image. He left the Mountain and returned to Monaco and Berlin. He wrote a book, Ascona, on the Monte Verit community. Erich Mhsam was among the first ones to be killed by the Nazis in the concentration camps in 1934. 3.7. Rudolf von Laban and his Dance School Rudolf von Laban is one of the pioneers of central European modern dance; the theoretical and practical foundations of his dance school are historically linked to Monte Verit. The art and movement school at Monte Verit was founded in 1913. It dealt with several aspects: the art of movement, the art of sound, the art of speaking, the art of form. The main idea is that of expressing feelings, emotions and spirit through bodily movement. In The World of the Dancer, Rudolf von Laban writes: Dance is knowledge, performance, construction, all that satisfies the man who seeks and the man who acts. But the real embodiment of the dance of the dances, the greatest event, is the dance that makes the human body vibrate.

4. Expressing the Inner Self The founders of Monte Verit wanted to create a community and a way of living which could be an alternative to the one imposed by society at large. Free expression meant letting go of social constraints, both in the way of dressing, of relating to one another and to ones own body. Dance was one of the ways to freely express feelings and emotions. Rudolf von Laban, the famous dancer and choreographer, opened his own dance school at Monte Verit. Some guests made use of drugs or experienced free sexual activities, but these forms were not part of the communitys official culture. The freedom of expression at the Mountain, in its varied forms, met little opposition from the local community or the authorities. In time, the guests spread the philosophy and its forms of expression in their travel throughout Europe.

A joint project by: TEC-Lab, University of Lugano and the HOC Laboratory, Politecnico di Milano 4

Seekers of Truth. Hermann Hesse and Monte Verit The Hermann Hesse Museum, Montagnola, Switzerland

4.1. Body Freedom The dwellers of Monte Verit enjoyed exposing their bodies to sun and light in whatever occasion. They were working naked in the garden and often took sun baths naked, men and women always separate. The dancers in Rudolf von Labans school were sometimes dancing and moving completely naked. We cannot tell if the consciousness of their naked bodies influenced their sexual behaviour. We know that Otto Gross was making excessive use of drugs, tried new sexual experiences and practiced the free matrimony with some of the members of the community. Rudolf von Laban also had free relations with women: he was living in the same hut with his wife Maja Lederer and his mistress Suzanne Perottet, but he had another relationship with the Russian ballerina Dussia Bereska. He had a son in common with each of the three women. 4.2. Dancing Naked: Truth and Fiction Dancing was part of the official culture of Monte Verit. It was not a rigid social dance but rather a free expression of feelings and emotions, through bodily movements. It was in the expression of the spirit that Rudolf von Laban, dancer and dance theorist, saw the core of the dance school he founded at Monte Verit. Mary Wigman, one of his students, recalls: We danced with or without music. We danced to the rhythm of poetry, and sometimes Rudolf asked us to dance words, phrases, short poems that we had to imagine ourselves. Even though these experiments did not and could not have possibly - led us to a precise artistic form, they opened for us another part of the magical world and helped us to go deeper into our own emotional life. 4.3. Reactions in Ticino The relationship of Monte Verit with the community of Ticino was very peaceful. Only the church found it hard to accept the liberal lifestyle of the people living there. Several exchanges of letters between church officials and the local police have been preserved. Bishops and priests denounced the immoral life of Monte Verit. The response of the Ticinese police was remarkably tolerant. The policeman Rusca, who was sent to inspect the community, wrote a report where he described the behaviour of the dwellers as peaceful and by no means a threat to public safety. 4.4. Reverberations in Society At the beginning of the 20th century, people living in Ticino were used to seeing artists and intellectuals coming from the North or from Italy to benefit from the milder climate. Local people developed a tolerant, non-interfering attitude towards foreigners. Nevertheless, seeing people working naked in their vegetable garden was a scandalous event for the inhabitants of Ascona and the nickname the naked dancers is still used to recall the community members. Outside Ticino, the message of Monte Verit spread around Europe, through its guests; some of these enlightened minds went on their journeys and spread the word about the liberal society of Ascona. These connections resulted in a tremendous impact of Monte Verit philosophy on the European intellectual avant-garde.

5. The Philosophy The original idea of the founders of Monte Verit was to create a community that adopted a natural way of life based on different values from the ones of the industrialized society. Ida Hofmann wanted to give rise to a new man, the embodiment of a reformed society, characterised by healthy diet, bodily contact with air and light, and a new concept of women's condition. As part of their creed of simplicity, Monte Verit founders and other guests started writing in a reformed orthography of the German language. Even if Monte Verit influenced the intellectual and artistic avant-garde movements, the ideal society its founders proposed was not feasible and it remained an intellectual utopia. The largest echo of Monte Verit was maintained in time by the dance school of Rudolf von Laban.
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Seekers of Truth. Hermann Hesse and Monte Verit The Hermann Hesse Museum, Montagnola, Switzerland

5.1. The New Man The philosophy of Monte Verit does not lie on a diet and a way of dressing, but on a way of living: it is a life that blends in harmoniously with nature; the new man is the natural man, who relates to his inner potential through his body and a healthy way of life. The importance is placed on the body, its form, its health, but also its expression and the unity of body and mind. This explains the numerous physical activities proposed at Monte Verit, from rowing to long walks, gymnastics, working in the garden etc. 5.2. The Status of Family, Women and Children The concept of family, children and women was revolutionary for the beginning of the 20th century. Ida Hofmann wrote a book about the role of women, where she stated that women had the same rights as men. Freedom and independence of all the family members were guaranteed from early life: children were not considered the property of their parents, but independent people from birth. The 10th article of the family statute sets forth: Since the day of his birth, the child belongs to himself. The community of Monte Verit acknowledges the mother's right and duty to take care of the child and bring him up until he is emancipated according to law. The mother can also delegate this right to other people in the community. 5.3. The Ideal Society The founders at Monte Verit looked upon the little community as a model for a new society. Their job was considered to be a mission whose aim was to spread the philosophy of the new man to all human society. This philosophy was based on a healthy diet, an open-air life, nudism, free love and women's emancipation. Ida Hofmann wrote: A vegetarian lifestyle raises the human being to such a high moral level that the bloody battle between human beings becomes impossible. (Vegetabilismus! Vegetarismus!, 1905) The model for the new society was created, however, by wealthy and intellectual people and had nothing to do with the real conditions of other classes. From the beginning, it was an utopian dream, and it remained such until today. 5.4. The Echo of Monte Verit in Time One of the fields Monte Verit influenced most is dance, thanks to Rudolf von Laban, who established the basis of modern expressive dance. The theoretical foundations of this dance are still in use today; the system of movement-notation bears his name - Labanotation. Similarities can be found between the philosophy of Monte Verit and the hippie movements in the sixties and seventies, though the former was not influential in any direct way. The idea of the free, natural and physically active man is also indisputably modern. Though their philosophy can be said to have been revolutionary and with remarkable modern aspects, the actual dream of the founders the reformed man and the new society - never came true and remained confined to their time and place. 5.5. The Use of Reformed Orthography The quest for simplicity, which was part of the philosophy of Monte Verit, was also extended to the use of the German language. The community founders and other guests were writing in reformed orthography, a simplified form of writing German: first letters of nouns were not capitalized, spelling was adapted to the way words were pronounced, while words were no longer joined together. The use of reformed orthography meets the general principles of the philosophy promoted by Monte Verit, based on a free, simple and natural way of life.

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Seekers of Truth. Hermann Hesse and Monte Verit The Hermann Hesse Museum, Montagnola, Switzerland

6. Hermann Hesse and Monte Verit In 1907, Hermann Hesse was living with his wife and son on Lake Constance in Germany. Under the appearance of a quiet fulfilled family life, he still fell into deep depression moments. Hesse looked on Monte Verit as the place for spending some time in tranquillity and peace. He spent four weeks in April 1907 in the community, in an air and light hut. There is no evidence that he returned to the Mountain, though he visited Ascona, Lugano and Locarno afterwards, to meet friend writers and artists. Echoes of the Monte Verit philosophy can be traced in his writings, though in most cases no direct connection can be found. 6.1. Depression and Renewal Hermann Hesse became successful in 1904, with the publishing of his first novel Peter Camenzind. Due to royalties received, he could henceforth completely dedicate himself to writing. In 1907, he was living with his wife, Maria Bernoulli, and their son in the village of Gaienhofen, in the German region Bodensee. Though his life as a married man and a writer seemed fulfilled and happy, he continued to have deep depression. At that time Monte Verit seemed to be a place for reflection and tranquillity, where he could stay away from the outside world, at peace with himself. 6.2. The Time in the Colony The four weeks spent by Hesse in Monte Verit are not well documented and this gave rise to legends around it. For certain, he spent his time in an air and light hut, with no central heating and tried to stick to the rules of the community: simple food and healthy sleep. He lived in isolation, he only went to take his raw vegetables and fruit meal that he ate alone. For the rest of the time, he had long walks around the nearby woods. Legend has it that he met Gustav Grser in the woods, during a heavy spring rain. However there is no certain evidence regarding the meeting between Hesse and the community founder. A letter sent by Gustav Grser to Hesse never received any reply. 6.3. Monte Verit in Hesses Writings Traces of the Monte Verit philosophy can be found in several of Hesses writings, but few of them can be directly linked to the history of the community or its founders. In "Dr. Knlge's End", Hesse marvels at the various eating rites and at the extreme hardships the members of a vegetarian community willingly experienced. The story Inside the rock seems to be an auto-biographical account: All in all, I had not eaten for seven days. During this time, my skin regenerated, I got used to nudity, to the hard bed, the heat of the sun and the cold wind of the night. At times it looked as though I was hardening myself, I was growing roots and falling back into a mineral or vegetal life. In his writings, Hesse always keeps a distance, a critical perspective. The moral of his writings is that this philosophy remains utopian and does not function in the real world for reviving human beings or society. 6.4. The Utopian Dream Hesses writings show that the philosophy promoted by Monte Verit concerned him, but in the end he concluded that it was unrealistic and he discarded it. The World Improver deals with political ideas and the return to nature as a means to revive society. The main character, Berthold Reichardt, lives one year in isolation, but in the end he gives up every dream of renewal through seclusion and goes back to live a happy life with the woman he loves. 6.5. Man's Quest for Freedom Hesses quest for freedom and truth is represented in his writings by a character free from conventions, in search of himself. A connection can be established between this key character of Hesses and the two brothers, founders of Monte Verit, Gustav and Karl Grser. One of the most
A joint project by: TEC-Lab, University of Lugano and the HOC Laboratory, Politecnico di Milano 7

Seekers of Truth. Hermann Hesse and Monte Verit The Hermann Hesse Museum, Montagnola, Switzerland

fascinating characters of The World Improver, the prophet Eduard van Vlissen, seems to resemble both brothers: like Karl Grser, he wears a simple outfit of raw wool and makes his own furniture from unfinished wood; like Gustav Grser, he is free from conventions, speaks and behaves according to his own truth and was a painter in his youth. 7. The Exhibition Rifugio Monte Verit From October 2006 to March 2007, The Museum Hermann Hesse in Montagnola Collina dOro, hosted the exhibition Rifugio Monte Verit. The exhibition attempts to shed light on the real facts related to the making of the community and its first years, beyond the stories and myths that have been kept alive until today. The exhibition focuses on the first twenty years and recalls historical truth through the use of original objects and documents, some of them never exhibited before. 7.1. The Narrative Path The exhibition Rifugio Monte Verit deals with the first twenty years since the community was founded at the turn of the last century. The first founders are presented through quotes, pictures and characteristic objects. The exhibition path is also a journey through time, from the first years of the community, of high dreams and rigid rules, to the softer approach employed after 5-10 years. The statutes of the community, for example, show this gradual passage from the rigid vegetabilist society to the more permissive relaxation spot, with the introduction of milk and meat in the diet and of central heating for the comfort of the dwellers. 7.2. Rare Documents and Objects All the documents displayed at Rifugio Monte Verit are original and some of them have never been exhibited before. Most of the objects have been borrowed from the Museum Monte Verit, created by Harald Szeemann. Some objects have been collected by him in over thirty years and some have been exposed in the exhibition The Breasts of Truth. The wisdom notes that Gustav Grasser used to exchange for food are some of the most authentic traces of the former life in the community. They speak about life and truth, in an emphatic and heavy old German language. 7.3. Unveiling Truth and Fiction Designing an exhibition is a matter of selection of objects to be exhibited, but also of stories to tell. For Rifugio Monte Verit, the curators choice has been to focus on significant aspects of the life in the community and display all the original and meaningful objects that could embody these aspects. The choice is always to find a beautiful and significant object for a message that we want to convey, says Regina Bucher , museum curator, about this selection of objects.

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