Kaplanei Gurtis

The Kaplanstöckl stands beside the Kuratienkirche in Gurtis, a quiet hamlet in the Nenzing municipality of Vorarlberg. Built between 1834 and 1839 from plans drawn up in Vienna, it is a plain two-storey cube topped by a low pyramid roof with three dormers. The square floor plan measures about nine metres on each side, and the walls carry no ornament beyond their simple lines. Its unadorned style reflects the modest resources of a 19th-century village school. Experts at the Federal Monuments Office recognise it as the oldest surviving primary school building in Vorarlberg. After a century and a half of teaching, the house was converted in 1986–87 into a community centre. Today the upper floor houses the local traffic club, while the ground floor serves as a meeting room for clubs and events. Visitors step into a compact space where whitewashed plaster and exposed beams recall its schoolroom past. The single room on each floor opens off a central staircase lit by a small skylight. Outside, the churchyard wall and the alpine meadows of the Walgau valley frame the plain cube, making the building a quiet witness to two centuries of village life.