Mittelweiherburg (Hard)

The Mittelweiherburg is a moated castle built around 1570 in the village of Hard in Vorarlberg. It stands in the spring area of the Harder Dorfbach, though its original pond has disappeared. Only the western wing with its side tower survives from the original complex. The tower has a round base and the three-storey main block is topped by a steep roof. Traces of the demolished main wing can still be seen on the eastern façade. The castle passed through many hands, including the Deuring family and Weingarten Abbey, before becoming the birthplace of Vorarlberg’s textile industry in 1794. Samuel Vogel from Alsace set up a fabric-printing works there. In 1838 the Swiss manufacturer Melchior Jenny bought the building for Jenny & Schindler, and after 1867 Samuel Schindler continued the printing operation. Today the Mittelweiherburg houses a textile-printing museum. Between 1957 and 1962 it was restored and turned into a local history museum. Since 1997 the focus has been on block printing, hand printing and the social history of industrialisation up to the 1930s.