Overall Concept of the Sitterwerk Foundation

The purpose of the Sitterwerk Foundation is to further expand and develop the center for art and cultural enterprise in the Sittertal valley near St.Gallen. This center was initiated under the name Sitterwerk as an institutional center within a network of producers of art and cultural-entrepreneurial enterprises. The center was set up with the goal of advancing the multifaceted processes in the creation of art and cultural assets by making it possible to use the synergies that arise between these processes.

The starting point for the development of the center is the dynamic on the industrial area in the Sittertal. Here art is created, produced or restored, presented to the public, and explored in various respects — from scholarly, technical, or artistic perspectives. Thus, in the surroundings of an art foundry, a book workshop and a stonemason atelier, artists, craftspeople, scholars and scientists in various fields and a broad public come into contact with one another.

As a center for art and cultural enterprise, the Sitterwerk forms the nucleus of this fertile dynamic between the multifaceted processes that take place here. At this time, the Sitterwerk already encompasses four institutional facilities:

In the Art Library, Daniel Rohner’s collection of 30,000 volumes on art, architecture and their history are supplemented by literature on material and casting technologies. The Sitterwerk makes this specialized library accessible to the public — which, thanks to modern technology, is possible in a way that does not affect the private character of this collection.

The infrastructure for a Material Archive is being set up under the same roof. A collection of materials and documentation on techniques for working with them will allow producers of art, architects, and designers to directly compare and inspect the specific qualities of individual materials that can only be procured with great effort.

In the Studio House, it is possible to directly support artists by inviting them to reside and work here, as recognition of their work by a panel of experts.

And in the Kesselhaus Josephsohn, the work of the important sculptor is presented in a regularly changing selection, conserved, and made available for scholarly research in a catalogue raisonné.

In the institutions of the Sitterwerk, exhibitions relating in content to its focuses — art, books, production of sculptural art, and design — take place in a loose series. As a result of these exhibitions and close cooperation with technical and educational institutes, of offering a good infrastructure for the creation of art and design and the documenting and researching of them, and for educational offerings with a cultural orientation, the Sitterwerk has become known far beyond the region, and, therefore, also deserves that the location be promoted.