Measured in terms of population, Feldkirch is the second largest
city in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg with 34,210 inhabitants (as
of January 1, 2020) and is also the seat of the district
administration of the administrative district of the same name.
Feldkirch is the westernmost municipality in Austria and its 13th
most populous city.
Feldkirch is the seat of numerous
institutions, which is why it is also referred to as the "secret
state capital". These include the Feldkirch Regional Court, the
Vorarlberg Chamber of Commerce, the Vorarlberg Chamber of Labor, the
largest regional hospital in Vorarlberg (Feldkirch Regional
Hospital), the Vorarlberg State Conservatory, a branch of the
Federal Finance Court and the State Office for Surveying and
Geoinformation (LVG). Feldkirch has been a diocesan town and
bishopric since 1968 and has also been a university town since the
Vorarlberg University of Education was founded in 2007.
For
the Fritzens Sanzeno culture see cult place in the Grütze hallway.
Feldkirch city center
Feldkirch has one of the best-preserved
medieval townscapes in Vorarlberg. The city was built around 1200 at the
same time as the Schattenburg and features a geometric grid system.
Since the city wall was rebuilt around 1500, the city has remained
unchanged over the centuries.
The Feldkirch ensemble has been
listed in the Austrian list of cultural assets (cultural assets
protected under the Hague Convention) since 2015.
The
Montforthaus was reopened at the beginning of 2015. It serves as a
culture and congress center. A market and festival hall was originally
opened at this location in 1926. In 1973 this public hall burned down
and a new building was decided. Two years later, the new building called
“Stadthalle” was opened. In 1990 it was given the new name Montforthaus.
The streets of the Schlossgraben, Hirschgraben and St. Leonhardsplatz
mark the former course of the city wall that initially surrounded the
Neustadt area in the 13th century. The wall was largely rebuilt around
1500 and has been demolished in many places since 1826.
As long
as Feldkirch was surrounded by a city wall and a city moat, you could
only enter the city through one of the four gates. These city gates were
called Bregenzer or Nikolaustor, Bludenzer or Schultor, Mühle or Sautor
and Churer or Salztor. The latter two gates still stand today, the other
two were demolished along with the city wall at the beginning of the
19th century.
The Churer Tor was built as part of the old city
wall in 1491 and is located at the exit from Montfortgasse to
Hirschgraben. The name is derived from Churerstraße, which begins here.
Because the salt barn, in which salt was stored, stood next to this gate
until around 1900, it is also called the “Salt Gate”. The building has a
coat of arms stone on the wall with the Feldkirch coat of arms in a
scrollwork cartouche (1591).
The eight-story, round Cat Tower (also
called the “Thick Tower”) stands on Hirschgraben. It was built as part
of the city's fortifications against the Swiss under the reign of the
Roman-German King and later Emperor Maximilian I from 1491 to 1507. In
the 17th century, the bell chamber was built for the large church bell
(the largest in Vorarlberg). The mighty, originally six-story round
tower was decorated with an image of the Virgin Mary, which was restored
by Florus Scheel in the 19th century. The name comes from cats (weapons)
that were housed in the defensive tower, or from the sights made of cat
and lion heads on the cannons that were once stationed on the tower.
Powder Tower: The tower from 1460 stands on the southern corner of the
city wall, near the mill gate
Water Tower: This is located in the
western corner of the city, just like the
Thieves storm
Schattenburg: The Schattenburg was the ancestral home of the Counts
of Montfort until 1390. The first construction phase began around 1230
under Hugo I of Montfort, the founder of the city. Under Count Friedrich
von Toggenburg (1416–1436) and bailiff Hans von Königsegg, the
Schattenburg was expanded and redesigned in the 15th century. After the
bailiff's office moved out, the castle was put up for auction several
times, and in 1813 it was even supposed to be demolished. The
Schattenburg has been owned by the city of Feldkirch since 1825, which
acquired it for 833 guilders. The Schattenburg now served as a barracks
and later as a poor quarters. The castle owes its rescue and revival to
the Museum and Heritage Association for Feldkirch and the surrounding
area, which was founded in 1912. The castle houses a castle restaurant
in the rooms on the ground floor, and a local museum operates on the
upper floors, which attracts around 25,000 guests every year.
Toster
ruins
Liechtenstein Palace: In its current form, the house at
Schlossergasse No. 8 was built in the baroque style after the city fire
of 1697 as an official residence for Prince Johann Adam Andreas of
Liechtenstein. For some time the house was owned by Christian Getzner
(1782–1848). In 1848 it came into the possession of the Tschavoll
family, from whose heirs the city acquired it in 1967. Today the
building is used as a city archive and library.
The cathedral parish church of St. Nicholas was first mentioned in
1287. The originally Romanesque building was badly damaged by city fires
(1348, 1398, 1460). The late Gothic new building was completed in 1478.
The cathedral church is the most important Gothic church in Vorarlberg.
Their importance can be seen primarily in the interior. Among other
works of art, you can also see a wrought iron Gothic pulpit, which was
created from an original sacrament house.
The Frauenkirche (own
church of the Annunciation and St. Sebastian and Antonius) is located
southeast of the Chur Gate. It originally dates from 1473, but was
largely redesigned between 1672 and 1678; Serb Orthodox parish church
since 1990 and equipped with an iconostasis
Johanniter Church: The
Church of St. John the Baptist in Marktgasse was built in 1218 under
Hugo Graf Montfort as the church of the Knights Hospitaller. From 1665
it belonged to the Ottobeuren monastery. After secularization, it served
as the church of the high school from 1809 to 1969. On the gable side, a
knight figure, the “Bläsi”, strikes a bell every hour to tell the time.
The cemetery church of St. Peter and Paul, built in 1551, is located in
the middle of the cemetery that was laid out in 1549 in the north of the
city. There is also a coat of arms gravestone of Franz Ferdinand
Ramschwag (1716).
The Feldkirch Capuchin monastery was founded in
1602. In 1605 the monastery building in the northeast of the city
outside the former city walls was completed and the Church of the
Sacrifice of the Virgin Mary was consecrated. The city patron St.
Fidelis von Sigmaringen, who was the monastery head here in 1621 and
whose head is kept in the monastery, is particularly revered here.
Holy Cross Chapel in the “im Kehr” district
St. Margaretha Chapel on
Margarethenkapf
The St. Josef Institute is a monastery of the Sisters
of the Cross and a school.
Old Evangelical parish church (H. B.) near
the train station
The Reformed St. Paul's Church (H.B.) where the
Romanian Orthodox parish and the Old Catholics also celebrate services.
There has been a Buddhist monastery in Letzehof (southwest of the city
center) since 1982.
There are several free church, evangelical and
New Apostolic communities with their own worship facilities in
Feldkirch.
The Romanian Orthodox parish celebrates its services in
the Protestant St. Paul's Church.
In Levi's:
Parish church
of St. Magdalena
Parish Vicariate Church of Mary Queen of Peace and
cemetery
There is a mosque of the Islamic Federation (Millî Görüş) in
Levis that was originally established in Tisis.
In Altenstadt:
The parish church of Saints Pankratius and Zeno was built before 1425,
received a tower in 1825/26 and was enlarged in 1884/86.
The
Dominican convent has been inhabited and maintained by sisters of the
Dominican order since 1551. The current monastery building originally
dates from 1634, but was later expanded. The Dominican Church of the
Annunciation of Mary from 1695 replaced an earlier church building from
1640/42.
Petronilla Chapel
In Gisingen:
The parish
church of St. Sebastian was built in 1864–65 on the site of a plague
chapel built in 1634 and enlarged in 1922 due to the large increase in
population.
There is a Bosniak mosque in the Hämmerlesiedlung.
In Nofels:
The old parish church of Our Lady of the Visitation
was built between 1726 and 1728, and the tower was raised in 1865. From
1958 to 1962 a new building was added to the church.
Chapel St.
Sebastian and Fridolin in Bangs.
Chapel St. Martin and Magnus in
Oberfresch.
There is a small mosque in Nofels.
In Tisis:
Old parish church of St. Michael
Parish Church of the Holy Family
St. Antionius Chapel
In Toasters:
Parish Church of St.
Cornelius and Cyprian
Parish church of St. Corneli
Chapel of St.
wolfgang
The Feldkirchen bourgeoisie built a number of representative
residential buildings in the 19th century, most of which are still
privately owned today. The villas were mostly built on Reichsstrasse,
especially in the area between the Bärenkreuzung and the train station.
Villa Getzner: The sandstone villa, with a coach house and servants'
quarters, was built in 1882 according to the plans of the Swiss
architect Hilarius Knobel. The building is a historical monument.
Villa Feldegg: This villa was built in 1861, the architect is unknown.
It is characterized by a raised central projection with five window axes
and a balcony with three arcades. It is a rare example of how the
largely anonymous Biedermeier building culture, despite its
historicizing touches, achieved the quality of the early Art Nouveau
buildings.
Villa Claudia: The red Art Nouveau building with an onion
dome is now publicly owned and houses the Feldkirch registry office. It
is also a regular venue for exhibitions.
Residential complex in the
municipality of Feldkirch (1925–1926): After the destruction of the
spires of the town hall, this flat, rhythmic gable front of the
residential complex (Graf Hugo Wehrgang 1–5) is the last sign of Lois
Welzenbacher's urban planning work.
The City of Feldkirch's Culture Prize has been awarded since 1984.
Theater at Saumarkt
The Saumarkt sees itself as an important
regional cultural mediator that continually picks up on current cultural
trends, presents them locally and puts them up for discussion. In
addition, premieres and in-house productions are regularly offered in
cooperation with cultural workers in the country.
Pool Bar
Festival
As part of the Pool Bar Festival, concerts and various
events are offered for six weeks in July and August. It takes place in
the former Stella Matutina indoor swimming pool in Reichenfeldpark.
Weekly market
A weekly market takes place in Marktgasse twice a
week. Local products and specialties such as Bregenzerwald cheese are
offered.
Blossom Angel Market
Every year at the beginning of
Advent, this market starts in the center, which is a normal Christmas
market during the day and invites you to linger with mulled wine in the
evening.
Jugglers Festival
Street artists from ten nations
perform in the old town for two days as clowns, jugglers, mimes and
comedians.
Vinobile Feldkirch
Over 100 winemakers from all
wine-growing regions in Austria present themselves at the Vinobile wine
fair.
Feldkirch wine festival
In July, the Feldkirch Wine
Festival, which is known far beyond the country's borders, takes place
in Marktgasse. The event was introduced in 1967 and was initially called
the Wachau Wine Festival. The catering establishments present various
wine specialties here over a weekend.
Light city Feldkirch
Lichtstadt Feldkirch, the festival for light art, celebrated its
premiere in October 2018 and takes place every two years. After a break
due to corona in 2020, the second light art festival took place in
October 2021. National and international artists performed Feldkirch in
many forms and facets. The historic old town formed the backdrop and
framework for the festival evenings.
Potential Feldkirch
The
Potentials Feldkirch is a cultural festival for urban space design at
which around a hundred exhibitors present their products and ideas. The
Potentiale Messe & Festival stands for the close relationship between
product and designer, for comprehensible production chains and for
consciously chosen materials and goods that were created in a fair
process. The Potential takes place annually in November, but had to be
canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the corona pandemic.
Since Bloomsday 1994, a James Joyce quote can be read in the
Feldkirch train station hall, emphasizing the Irish writer's special
connection to Feldkirch. Thanks to influential friends, James Joyce, who
was considered an “enemy alien” in 1915 due to the World War, was able
to leave Austria with his partner Nora Barnacle and their two children,
while his brother Stanislaus Joyce was arrested in Trieste as an “enemy
alien” and for the duration of the World War remained imprisoned. Joyce
was also almost arrested at the border control in Feldkirch, which is
why, according to him, the fate of his novel Ulysses was decided at the
Feldkirch train station. In the summer of 1932, Joyce's friendship with
the publishing couple Maria and Eugene Jolas took him back to
Montfortstadt, where he stayed at the Hotel Löwen for three weeks and
worked on Finnegans Wake.
Feldkirch's dual connection with the
life and work of James Joyce was long unknown to the general public. At
the suggestion of the literary scholar Andreas Weigel, who pointed out
this special literary-historical position of the Montfort city to the
Vorarlberg Finance and Culture Councilor Guntram Lins in 1992, the
Feldkirch cultural group installed commemorative plaques in the station
hall and at the Hotel Löwen in 1994, with financial support from the
State Cultural Department together with the Zurich James Joyce
Foundation organized a multi-day Joyce symposium. At the end of 2001,
the ÖBB replaced the memorial plaque mounted above the ticket counters
by the Feldkirch cultural group on Bloomsday 1994 with a particularly
vivid and eye-catching presentation of the literary-historical Joyce
quote, with which the ÖBB made a significant contribution to the
popularization and dissemination of the fact, which had been hidden for
decades. On June 16, 2004, after ten years of discussion, the city of
Feldkirch officially renamed the Lions Passage to the James Joyce
Passage on the occasion of the celebration of the 100th Bloomsday. On
this occasion, the city of Feldkirch installed a notice board with
biographical background information.
A few kilometers north of today's
urban area (in today's Rankweil) there was already a settlement with
an ecclesia sancti Petri ad Campos, i.e. a church of St. Peter in
the field, in late Roman times. In the 9th century, another (branch)
church was built in the field, the St. Petronilla Church (today the
Chapel of St. Petronilla and Martin). The name Feldkirichun in the
Rätisches Reichsurbar - a property register from 842 AD - was
derived from one of these churches in the field and originally
referred to the settlement of today's Altenstadt. The name Feldkirch
(Veldkiricha, Veldkirchia and other spellings) was then taken over
for the southern, near the Ill, newly created and rapidly growing
settlement at the foot of the Schattenburg built under Count Hugo I
of Montfort and the original Feldkirch, although still a village,
little by little Alte Stat, later called Altenstadt.
In 1218
the new Feldkirch was first mentioned as a town in a document. The
last count of the Feldkirch line of the Montforters, Rudolf V (†
1390), was first canon and provost in Chur for many years and was
only appointed to the government after a late, childless marriage.
In 1375 he sold the town and rule of Feldkirch to Duke Leopold III.
von Habsburg, whose bailiffs finally moved into Feldkirch in 1379.
At the beginning of the 14th century, thirty to forty Jews lived
in Feldkirch, but they were burned in 1349 because they were held
responsible for the outbreak of the plague.
In connection
with the sale, the Feldkirch citizens knew how to fight for freedom
rights, which found expression in the great freedom letter of 1376
and which they knew how to use economically.
Trade with Italy
and the Holy Roman Empire flourished and brought prosperity to the
city. The artisans achieved such importance that in 1405 they dared
to revolt against the patricians. The city's wealth was an important
prerequisite for its cultural development. They had enough money to
found a Latin school, which can be verified for the first time in
1399.
As a result, the Habsburgs administered their dominions
in what is now Vorarlberg, alternately from Tyrol and Upper Austria
(Freiburg im Breisgau). In the late Middle Ages, in the time of the
Appenzell Wars (1405–1429) between the prince abbey of St. Gallen,
allied with Habsburg, and the subordinate Appenzell, the development
of the state territories, which was completed in modern times,
began. Significant for this are different alliances between the
cities and the estates of the Feldkirch rulership with the courtiers
at Altstätten, Berneck and Marbach, with the city of St. Gallen and
with the country people on the Eschnerberg. In 1405, when the city
of Feldkirch was admitted, the actual establishment of the
Confederation ob dem See, the most important alliance of that time
in this region, followed the federal model. The federal government
expanded rapidly with the accession of Bludenz, Rankweil, Sax,
Gaster, Toggenburg and others. Daring military ventures and
uprisings against the rule of the Habsburgs (Tyrol, Allgäu, Thurgau)
were successful in the short term and led to the destruction of
numerous noble castles. On January 13, 1408, however, the federation
was subject to the Habsburg army of knights near Bregenz.
A battle took place near Feldkirch in 1799 during the Second Coalition War. In 1649 the Jesuit order founded a college in Feldkirch, from which the elite high school Stella Matutina developed from 1856 onwards, which was sponsored by the imperial family and which - with interruptions - existed until 1979 and gained international religious, scientific and educational influence through the Feldkirch.
In 1925, the urban
area expanded considerably through the incorporation of Levis,
Altenstadt, Gisingen, Nofels, Tosters and Tisis.
On October
1, 1943, Feldkirch was the target of an Allied air raid. A USAAF
bomber association, which was supposed to attack a Messerschmitt
plant near Augsburg, but had not found its target due to bad
weather, used Feldkirch as a substitute target instead. Among other
things, a hospital in the Tisis district was hit, causing over 100
deaths. Apart from the French troops marching in at the end of the
war, the bombing raid on Feldkirch was the only major fighting in
the Vorarlberg area during the Second World War.
The Kolping
family Feldkirch with the Kolping House on Jahnplatz is the oldest
still existing workers' association in Vorarlberg.