Monastery network: Schlehdorfer Verein establishes nationwide contacts with religious orders and experts

The Schlehdorfer association “Zukunft Kulturraum Kloster” is continuing its networking work.

The portal should go online in summer.

Workshops are also held.

Schlehdorf

- When monasteries are to be given a new use, religious orders face major challenges. Not only is the search for new users and a suitable concept very complex, but many questions also have to be clarified with authorities and offices. The recently founded association “Zukunft Kulturraum Kloster” is working on setting up an online platform that aims to provide nationwide information about a monastery transformation process for everyone involved and at all bureaucratic levels (we reported).

What has happened in the past few months? The team around cultural manager Ulrike Rose, one of the founders of the association and member of the board of the Federal Foundation for Building Culture, has promoted their network work. Four monasteries that have undergone or have completed a transformation will shortly be presented on the platform. In addition to Schlehdorf (this is how the process develops here), it is the Hegne Monastery in Baden-Württemberg and the Volkenroda Monastery in Thuringia and the Stans Monastery in Switzerland. In the latter, a “Culinarium Alpinum” was developed, in which regional food is produced and sold, including accommodation options and event rooms. "We conducted interviews with various people in charge for all projects,how the transformation went, ”says Rose. These and a documentation of the process are presented on the online platform. Of course, it is only the beginning, further objects are to follow.

"Future laboratory" in planning

In addition, they networked with other, similar projects, in Switzerland and in the German-speaking area of ​​the Netherlands.

"Nowhere is there a government agency that can support the important transformation process of monasteries, in which there are religious communities and interested subsequent users with many important questions," says Rose.

Currently, this only happens through private engagement.

That is why they are trying to lobby both at the federal level and in Bavaria so that a competence center can be created on the political side.

A “future laboratory” is also in progress. The Schlehdorfer Verein will hold a three-day workshop in which religious communities can discuss the re-use of their monastery complexes with experts from a wide variety of areas and receive advice, also with regard to legal and monument conservation issues. The “future laboratory” will start with one community each from Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia. “It's also about finding out what can enrich the respective region and the district,” says Rose. The online portal will then be presented to the public in September. As reported, the project is supported by the Federal Ministry of the Interior's funding program “Shaping the Region”, but the funds will expire at the end of the year. "We hope for further private support,because we want to continue the project. "

Further information:

Religious communities who want to take part in a workshop as well as supporters for the continuation of the network project can contact Ulrike Rose by email at post@zukunftkulturraumkloster.de.

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