Villa Raczyński (Bregenz)

Kloster Marienberg stands on the north-west slope of the Gebhardsberg in Bregenz’s Dorf district. A villa built between 1875 and 1877 for Count Raczyński now forms the heart of the site. The complex includes a casino with billiard rooms and bowling alleys, added in 1880–1881, and a two-storey building linked by a covered passage. A later addition, the Josefsbau of 1907, extends the ensemble with its mansard roof and niche statue of Saint Joseph. The Dominikanerinnen moved here in 1904 after leaving Freiburg during the Badischer Kulturkampf. Mother Elisabeth Sautier led the sisters from Überlingen to Lauterach, then to Bregenz where they turned the villa into a monastery and school. Since 1904 the community has belonged to the Austrian Union of Dominican Sisters, running a primary school, a middle school and a higher college for business careers. Visitors walk through the protected park laid out in 1874 and enter the villa’s preserved interiors. The two-storey building with its pilastered façade and rectangular windows leads to the Josefsbau, where the statue of the saint looks down from the gable. The former casino still shows its billiard and bowling rooms, while the monastery’s working school life continues around the cloistered garden.