Dornach: Boiler House

1914

Design: Rudolf Steiner

Hügelweg 62, Dornach, Switzerland

Goetheanum Hill

The Heizhaus (Boiler House), erected in 1914 according to a design by Rudolf Steiner, was built at the same time as the First Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland.

The buildings directly belonging to the First Goetheanum and erected at the same time (Glass House, Boiler House and Haus Duldeck) as well as the surrounding park form a coherent ensemble.

The ancillary buildings are grouped in a circle around the sloping terrace that protrudes on three sides and supports the principal building.

Dornach Hill

Today, the colony on Dornach Hill consists of over 180 private residences as well as several administrative and functional buildings, some of which were originally designed by Rudolf Steiner.

All functional buildings are on the north side of the Goetheanum, the residential buildings being located on the south side.

The organic form of the Goetheanum towering above all is continued in the curved landscaping of the hill with furnishings such as benches, garden gates or lanterns, and markers.

For the planting of the grounds around the Goetheanum, Steiner gave the instruction that the simplest possible plants and trees were to be used.

To this day, the approximately 45,000 square meter site is largely a meadow orchard.

Heating house

The Heizhaus was built in 1914 according to a design by Rudolf Steiner to supply the First Goetheanum and some of its outbuildings.

In 1913 Steiner made a model for the heating house.

The heating building is the first structure in the ensemble to be built entirely in concrete and is one of the most striking buildings surrounding the Goetheanum.

The structure is made of reinforced concrete. The exterior plaster is sprayed plaster up to the eaves. The domes and chimney are covered with cement.

The two-story substructure with windows on each floor is topped by a sculpturally shaped upper structure.

Chimney

The chimney is concealed behind a branching, tree-like structure with leaf buds.

According to Rudolf Steiner, the smoke from the chimney divides into a physical and an ethereal part.

The physical part is represented by the chimney, the ethereal part by the branchings emerging from the sides.

The boiler house is connected via an underground walk-through tunnel to the main building, providing sufficient heat to keep the rooms warm.

The boiler house, located on the northern edge of the hill, continues to provide heating to this day.

For fire police reasons alone, it would not have been possible to include the central heating system in the first wooden Goetheanum.

Ahrimanic

As an element of the so-called Ahrimanic, the heating plant was not allowed to be incorporated into the main building according to Steiner’s understanding.

In the early 1990s, the original coal-fired heating system was replaced by a gas-fired cogeneration plant.

Thus it became possible to heat 15 more buildings. The boiler house produces about 250 kW of heat and 190 kW of electricity.