City of Memmingen:Kreuzherrnsaal

Former church interior of the Holy Ghost monastery, late Baroque stucco ceiling with frescoes by Johann Friedrich Sichelbein. 

History:

• In approximately 1210, the Holy Ghost Hospital in Memmingen (Order of St. Spiritus de Roma in Saxia is founded to care for the poor and infirm, known in Memmingen as “Kreuzherrn”)
• 1365 Division into an upper nursing home (monastery with church and rooms on the top floor) and a lower nursing home (“home for people in need”) / small hospital on the ground floor, managed by the imperial free town)
• 1480-84 late Gothic construction of the church with two naves by Andreas Aichelberger, director of the hospital (period of office 1474-1498)
• 1531 Monks are gradually suppressed by the Protestant imperial free town
• 1549 Compensation and return of the monastery to the order
• 1617 Tower is built by Conrad Hölderlin
• 1675-80 New additions and baroque reorganisation of the monastery by Elias Bruggberger (period of office 1673-1694)
• 1709 Church is changed to baroque by Matthias Stiller in the
• “Wessobrunn” style, fresco wall-painting by Johann Friedrich Sichelbein, an inhabitant of Memmingen, commissioned by Sigismund Teuffel, director of the hospital (period of office 1694-1733)
• 1802 Secularisation of the monastery (final number of monks: 16 priests, 2 friars, and 3 novices)
• 1822-24 Transformation of the church into the warehouse of the local Salt Department, neo-classical northern facade
• 1946/47 Renovation into the „Kreuzherrnsaal“ for exhibitions and concerts
• 1999-2003 Redevelopment of the town of Memmingen’s singing and music school