Dominikanerinnenkloster Friesach

The former Dominican convent of St Josef stands just north of Friesach’s medieval walls along Neumarkter Straße. Built in the late 17th century, its U-shaped plan and sober baroque façades face south-east across a quiet stretch of road. A marble relief dated 1672 shows the complex and a double coat of arms above the main door. Inside, a niche holds a late-18th-century statue of St Joseph, while a Gothic gravestone from about 1300 is set into the wall to the left.

The building’s history stretches back to 1121, when Archbishop Konrad I founded a hospital here. Over the centuries it passed through the hands of Benedictines, the Teutonic Knights, Augustinian nuns and finally the Dominikanerinnen in 1887. After a fire in 1804 destroyed the Magdalenenkirche, the whole site fell into decay until the sisters restored it in 1890. Today the former cloister serves as St Hemma House, a Caritas centre for social work.

Inside the chapel, late-18th-century plasterwork frames a square nave with three sides of balconies supported on stubby columns. Above the choir, which ends in a five-sided apse, a palm-like umbrella vault rises into the roof. The main altar carries a 20th-century crucifix, a crowned Madonna and a figure of St Joseph, all carved by Johann Lang from Oberammergau. The quiet cloister court and the sober façades offer a place to pause beside the busy road.