Museums Monte Verità

Three buildings make up the museum itinerary on Monte Verità, above Ascona: Casa Anatta, Casa Selma, Casa dei Russi, and the Elisarion Pavilion.

Casa dei Russi is a building named after the many Russian students who stayed on Monte Verità after 1910. Today it hosts temporary exhibitions and artistic performances.

Casa Anatta is the home of the founders of the naturist colony built in 1902. The uniqueness of this building was highlighted as early as the 1930s. After the abandonment of Casa Anatta by the vegetarians (1920) and by Baron von der Heydt (1944), it was used as a (rather impractical) "annex" to the Albergo Monte Verità until 1978. Since 1981, Casa Anatta has become a permanent museum on the history of Monte Verità and is open to the public as a concentration of the travelling exhibition which, with great success, travelled from Ascona to Zurich, Berlin, Vienna and Munich from 1978 to 1980.

Complementing the municipal museum, which primarily displays paintings, Casa Anatta displays documentation on the Nordic invasion of utopia, "breasts of truth", such as anarchy, social utopia, reform of the soul, reform of life, reform of the spirit, reform of the body, psychology, mythology, dance, music and literature.

Casa Selma is a typical air-and-light "hut," adopted by the vegetarian colony and cooperative from the early years of its settlement on Monte Verità.

A wooden construction from 1901, with two rooms with gabled ceilings, intended for two members of the cooperative, it was inhabited until the 1940s. Relics of the vegetarian colony are on display.

The Elisarion Pavilion is a wooden structure built in 1986 on the foundations of the atrium of the former ‘Solario’. It houses a large circular painting entitled ‘The Clear World of the Blessed’ (3.45 × 25.3 m), painted by Elisar von Kupffer in 1923.

Accessibility

This cultural/tourist point of interest took part in the project Digital data mapping on accessibility of Pro Infirmis. The project was carried out with the collaboration and support of Ticino Turismo, the four regional tourism organizations and the Department of Education, Culture and Sport.

All information on the accessibility of this partner can be found on the following page.