Cordon-Haus

The Cordon-Haus stands in Hallein, a town in the Salzburger Talschaft near Salzburg. First recorded in 1425 as the ‘House to the Stake’, it occupies a prominent corner in the Burgfried quarter. The building once formed part of Fürsterzbischof Johann Ernst von Thun’s 17th-century frontier customs post. Later it became a municipal hospital during cholera and typhoid outbreaks. From 1870 to 1908 it housed the Hallein carving school where Alois Zwerger taught. The house gained wider fame when Jakob Adlhart the Elder bought it in 1908. His studio of Christian art and crafts fulfilled major commissions for Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Between 1911 and 1914 the workshop produced work in Split and Larissa. The sculptor Max Domenig directed the studio from 1913 until 1915. A fire in 1927 destroyed models, drawings and valuable objects inside. Today the Cordon-Haus shelters the Adlhart Archive. Its thick walls still show the scars of the 1927 blaze. Visitors can view the corner turret and the adjoining courtyard where the flames started. Inside, the archive preserves sketches, letters and photographs from the studio’s golden years. The building’s plain façade conceals a history of art, medicine and frontier duty.