Aryana covenant

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The Aryana Bund was an association of supporters of the Mazdaznan doctrine in Herrliberg near Zurich , who had lived in their own settlement since 1915.

history

After David Ammann , ambassador of Mazdaznan founder Otoman Zar-Adusht Ha'nish in Germany, was expelled from Leipzig in April 1914 , the Mazdaznan House Association was founded in Zurich in August 1914. The aim of the association should be «to set up and run a life and work school on a religiously neutral basis according to the principles of the Mazdaznan doctrine, in accordance with the efforts of the Mazdaznan Association, Central Seat Leipzig, in order to establish, promote and disseminate the Mazdaznan doctrine and to instruct students in the Mazdaznan way of life and philosophy. "

Ammann initially took up residence in Zurich, but moved it to Herrliberg in the spring of 1915. The "Aryana House" is said to have existed on Harzstrasse in Herrliberg since May 1, 1915. In August of the same year, the Ammann association acquired a barn that had already been converted at its own expense. Classrooms and guest rooms were set up in the building, as well as a kitchen, a dining and social room and a shop, and in the Trotthaus there was a printing shop, in which Aryana publications were also printed. In 1921, the Herrliberg mail order company is said to have offered 16 different pastries, as well as over 30 products for body care. The mail-order company's baker later opened the Aryana bakery in Bern, which was taken over by Schafroth Biscuits AG in Hindelbank in 1998.

In February 1916, the association was renamed "Verein Aryana", whose seat was now Herrliberg. The minutes of the general assembly called for this purpose show that the association had 60 members at the time. In April 1916 the entry was made in the commercial register .

In April 1930 the club house and six other properties were auctioned. A year later, the former Aryana Center was sold to the Diakonieverband Ländli in Oberägeri. He set up the “Chinderhuus Sunneschi” that still exists today.

The name Aryana is said to go back to a mountain of the Aryana Vaeja in India, where Rama, the founder of the Aryan religion of light, is said to have withdrawn after fulfilling his mission with his initiated brothers.

Ontos workshops and art school

In 1923 Johannes Itten founded the Ontos workshops and an Ontos art school as part of the Aryana settlement. He first met Mazdaznan in Bern in 1912. The mother of his close friend Hermann Röthlisberger ran an apprenticeship vegetarian restaurant there. In the summer of 1921 he attended a Mazdaznan congress in Leipzig.

The following areas of activity of the workshops are listed in a letterhead: hand weaving, Smyrna carpet knotting, tapestries . A publisher is also listed, but nothing is known about it. How big the production was cannot be said because of the pieces that have been preserved, mostly carpets.

Itten brought Gunta Stölzl from the Bauhaus to Herrliberg to set up the workshop . She was in Herrliberg from February 1923 with an interruption in the summer or from January 1924 to the end of August 1924. As part of a special exhibition at the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Zurich in December 1924, the workshop's hand-weaving works were shown. Gunta Stölzl's successor was Mila Lederer, who stayed in Herrliberg with her husband Hanns Hoffmann until April 1925.

The mentioned letterhead lists the subjects of the art school: nature studies, composition, form and color theory as well as graphics . No documents have been received for the art school. Peter Schmitt notes, however, that Itten tied in with the concept tried and tested in Vienna and Weimar in terms of content and method. The relationship between the art school and the textile workshop is also unclear. Schmitt writes: "This was hardly intended as a training workshop in the sense of the Bauhaus, but actually as a production facility."

Residents

A temporary resident of the settlement was the writer Albin Zollinger , who joined the Mazdaznan movement in 1924 and made it the subject of his autobiographical novel The Half Man (published 1929). The expressive dancer Suzanne Perrottet also lived in the settlement for a while.

literature

  • Lorenzo Petrò: Heimatschutz fights for sect settlement. In: Tages-Anzeiger , July 2, 2010.
  • Bernd Wedemeyer-Kolwe: "The new person". Physical culture in the German Empire and in the Weimar Republic. Würzburg, 2004. On the Aryana settlement p. 58.
  • Peter Schmitt: Johannes Itten and the Aryana Bund in Herrliberg. In: Christa Lichtenstern et al. (Ed.): Johannes Itten and the modern age: Contributions to a scientific symposium. Ostfildern-Ruit 2003, pp. 139–155.
  • Hans Rudolf Weinmann: Mazdaznan. In: Herrliberger Calendar , 1992.

Web links

  • Aryana - Mazdaznan , station of the virtual tour on the website of the Herrliberg Transport and Improvement Association.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Statutes of the Aryana Association , in: Mazdaznan , 16th year, 1923, No. 9/10, pp. 139–140.
  2. ↑ Schafroth Biscuits AG . See also Aryana Bakery Hostettler in the commercial register of the Canton of Bern.
  3. ↑ See Neue Zürcher Zeitung , December 11, 1924.
  4. ↑ Peter Schmitt: Johannes Itten and the Aryana Bund in Herrliberg. In: Christa Lichtenstern et al. (Ed.): Johannes Itten and the modern age: Contributions to a scientific symposium. Ostfildern-Ruit 2003, p. 146.
  5. ^ Albin Zollinger 1895–1941 on the website of Charles Linsmayer .