Mauerbach Charterhouse

The charterhouse was founded in 1314 by Duke Frederick the Fair of Austria, who was later buried at the site. The initial community comprised twelve monks under Prior Gottfried, drawn from the Carthusian house at Seiz (Žiče) in Styria, and the foundation was consecrated in 1316. In 1342 monks from Mauerbach were dispatched to settle the Prague Charterhouse at Smíchov after its destruction in the Hussite Wars. The monastery endured repeated hardships in the late medieval and early modern periods. It was plundered between 1483 and 1486, and in 1529 Ottoman troops during the Siege of Vienna set fire to the buildings, massacred some monks, and left seven members of the community dead. The 1590 Neulengbach earthquake caused further serious structural damage. By about 1550 only four choir monks remained. A decisive transformation began under Prior Georg Fasel (1616-1631), who launched an intensive rebuilding programme that gave the complex its present Baroque character; the great majority of the existing buildings were completed by 1660. The monastic church was erected from about 1616 and consecrated in 1638. Abbot Leopold Brenner, who lived at Mauerbach from 1641 and made his profession in 1650, compiled a chronicle of the house available in manuscript from 1669 and printed in 1725, providing an eyewitness account of the early Baroque construction. The 1683 Battle of Vienna brought renewed Turkish assaults and destruction, prompting repairs and refurbishments that continued until 1750. In 1782 Emperor Joseph II dissolved the monastery as 'non-productive' during his rationalist reforms. From 1786 the premises served as a care facility for the elderly and incurably ill of Vienna, with capacity for up to 700 residents, requiring extensive structural alterations. The complex later functioned as an emergency civilian hospital in 1944-1945, then as a shelter for the homeless from 1945 to 1961. During this period the buildings were badly neglected and fell derelict. The Austrian federal government acquired the property in 1961 (or 1962, according to some accounts), and the Bundesbaudirektion (Federal Buildings Directorate) took over in 1979. From 1966 to 1994 the charterhouse also served as a depot for artworks looted by the Nazis that the Austrian state had classified as 'ownerless' (herrenloses Kunstgut). Since 1984 the Federal Monuments Office has conducted painstaking restoration, establishing its workshops on the site.

The charterhouse does not function as a traditional museum with a permanent art collection in the conventional sense. Its significance lies rather in its architectural and archaeological heritage, supplemented by rotating exhibitions. Between 1966 and 1994, however, the buildings housed a substantial depot of art objects awaiting restitution, these were the remaining artworks returned to Austria from Munich, including objects purchased for the Linz art museum, purchases by Martin Bormann, items intended for the Imperial Castle in Poznan, objects from Fischhorn Palace, and remaining items from Altaussee and depots in Vienna, Linz and Salzburg. These materials have since been dispersed through restitution processes. The complex now hosts special exhibitions on traditional crafts, archaeology, and historical building techniques, while the buildings themselves constitute the primary cultural heritage resource.

The charterhouse is organised around a large square cloister walk of nearly 500 metres in length, making it one of the longest in Europe. Individual Carthusian cells with their gardens were arranged along the north, east and southeast sides. The south wing of the cloister connects the monastic church with the refectory, library and Prälatenhof. Southwest of the main range, across the Mauerbach stream, lies a linear sequence of service and entrance buildings: the storage building, former workshops, the Prima Porta (main gate, with outer gate built in 1639 and inner gate of 1645 in red Gaminger marble), the gate church (now parish church), and the former Meierhof with its Wildschütz tower at the southeast corner. The Meierhof has been largely replaced by later construction. Between the storage building and main monastery to the northwest stood the former mill and bakehouse, while the cemetery lies beyond the northern outer wall.

The monastic church is a tall choirless hall church with a steep hipped roof over a high underchurch. A sacristy projects to the north on the west side and the former chapter hall to the north on the east. The construction materials used in the Baroque rebuilding included Flysch sandstone (historically called Wiener Sandstein or Schleifstein) for masonry, ashlar, door and window surrounds, floor slabs and architectural elements; Zogelsdorfer stone for sculpture; and Leithakalk and Kaiserstein from Kaisersteinbruch for window sills, door surrounds, thresholds, gate surrounds, wheel guards and columns. The Prälatenhof is a two-storey four-winged building accessed from the south through the Eagle Portal, with the Imperial Portal at the centre of the north tract.

Archaeological investigation has revealed the previously unknown floor plan of the medieval monastery and traced the building history from its origins to the present Baroque complex. The partially uncovered and preserved lower church of the medieval charterhouse and the choir of Schauer's mortuary chapel in the cloister garden have been conserved and can be visited.