Kloster Mildenfurth

The former Premonstratensian monastery of Mildenfurth stands in the Weida valley near Berga-Wünschendorf in eastern Thuringia. Founded in 1193 by Heinrich II ‘the Rich’, Vogt of Weida, it became the house monastery and burial place for the local lords. The monks came from Magdeburg’s Liebfrauenstift and later ran eight parishes and a hospital. A high stone wall with arrow slits and a Romanesque gateway still surrounds part of the site. The monastery’s Romanesque collegiate church was built around 1200 as a three-aisled basilica with a staggered choir. Its surviving parts include sections of the south aisle and the crossing piers, now inside the later Renaissance palace. The south wing of the cloister and the refectory remain, showing late-Gothic windows and traces of the original arcade. After the Reformation the buildings passed to Matthes von Wallenrod, who converted the church into a palace between 1556 and 1560, reusing the transept and two bays of the nave. Today the complex houses an art gallery run by the Kühn couple. Their sculptures stand in the former cloister garden, while the barrel-vaulted rooms host changing exhibitions of contemporary art. Concerts, theatre and readings take place in the old monastic walls, and the restored millrace still winds through the valley below. The entire site belongs to the Foundation of Thuringian Palaces and Gardens and is gradually being repaired.