Kapuzinerkloster Hartberg

The Kapuzinerkloster Hartberg stands in the Austrian town of Hartberg in the Steiermark region. It is a simple, single-aisled monastery with a church on Kernstockplatz in the southwest of the old town. The building has a plain façade topped by a hipped roof and a small roof turret above the altar. A staircase leads up to the street from the front. The monastery was founded in 1654 and consecrated in 1658 under the patronage of the Assumption of Mary. It faced closure twice, first during the 18th-century reforms of Emperor Joseph II and again in 1940 under the Nazis, when the monks were forced out. After the Second World War they returned, though part of the building remained in use as a district old people’s home until 1955. Since 2016 the Diocese of Graz-Seckau has run the site as the Gebetshaus Hartberg, developing it as a place of prayer inspired by St Philip Neri. Inside, the church has a plain barrel-vaulted ceiling with lunettes. Its neo-Baroque furnishings were enriched early in the 20th century by paintings from P. G. Burtscher. The monastery itself was thoroughly restored in the late 1970s. The quiet square outside and the unadorned lines of the building give the place a calm, reflective atmosphere.