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"Great is the power of memory that dwells in places." (from Cicero)

View of Ortisei in 1860

This painting, completed in 1925 by the painter Josef Moroder Lusenberg, is meant to depict Ortisei, the village where he grew up in the 1860s as seen from his house. This retrospective look is connected with the profound developments occurring in the valley in the wake of the booming art and tourist trade up until the First World War, causing farming to decline in importance. 

This cultural asset is part of the tour "The turn-of-the-century economic boom in Ortisei: villas and workshops".

Organ grinder

This oil painting, created by Josef Moroder Lusenberg in 1912, shows an organ grinder entertaining a group of barefoot children in front of a farmhouse in Val Gardena. The children seem fascinated by the monkey sitting on his street organ, while two girls watch a little way off doing embroidery with their mother - no doubt intended as an observation of social diversification in Ortisei at the turn of the century. 

Villa Sonnenburg

Josef Moroder Lusenberg and his son Josef had Sonnenburg erected in 1904 on the site of the old mill at Cudan stream. A workshop for sacred sculpture was set up on the ground floor, where Josef Jr. built up an ecclesiastical art business. The turn-of-the-century building stands out thanks to its half-hipped roof, which is rare for Val Gardena, bay window and turret with a sundial painted on the wall beneath some double arched windows.

Cësa Scurcià

Scurcià is considered one of the largest medieval farm sites in Ortisei, having been divided up and given rise to a number of different farmhouses. A workshop was set up in Cësa Scurcià which produced a lot of well-known 19th-century sculptors. The altar builder, Leopold Moroder, extended the house in 1900 into a café and funded the already-existing 'Kastanienallee'. The house today is a new construction from 1981 by Giorgio Moroder, the disco music pioneer and Oscar prizewinner.

Cësa Lusenberg

The old Lusenberg farmhouse (in Ladin Jumbierch) was converted into a bourgeois dwelling in 1830 by Annamaria Pezlauzer Moroder. She was the grandmother of the sculptor and painter Josef Moroder (1846-1939), who added the name of the house to his own. Moroder Lusenberg set up his painter's atelier, which is still in its original state, on the upper floor. His second wife Felizita ran an antiques business from there. The sculpture workshop on the ground floor is also in its original state. Moroder's grandson, Harald Schmalzl, still works there today as a sculptor.

Cësa Doss

New Doss was constructed as a two-storey dwelling in 1883 by the sculpture painter and manufacturer Dominik Anton Moroder, youngest brother of the painter Josef Moroder Lusenberg. There was a painter's workshop for ecclesiastical art on the ground floor that, before the First World War, employed up to ten assistants. Son Heinrich ran the painter's workshop until into the 1960s, and the fourth generation are still running it from Cësa Rumanc next door.

Villa Venezia

Johann Baptist Moroder, son of Josef Moroder Lusenberg and himself one of the most important Val Gardena sculptors around 1900, built Villa Venezia in 1903/04 based on his own designs for a residence in neo-Renaissance style with a balustrade featuring marble wooden columns. A sculptor's studio and domed skylight were included. The mills from Planaces farm, the forge with furnace and a sawmill used to be in front of the newly built house.

Cademia' art school

In 1872, Ferdinand Demetz da Furdenan opened the first public training workshop for sculptors in Ortisei. The multi-storey building on the eastern edge of Ortisei was purchased by the local council in 1938 and the art school that had in the meantime moved out moved back in again. In 1999, a new construction was set up on the spot of the original Cademia building, which houses the art school today.

This site is part of the tour "The turn-of-the-century economic boom in Ortisei: villas and workshops".

Saint Mary's parish church, Selva

Records from 1517 mention a new construction that was extended in 1678. The church was newly built in 1872 after plans by Cyprian Pescosta, the priest in Bulla at the time. The features come from altar builders from Val Badia valley and sculptors from Ortisei. In 1988, the nave was replaced with a new, larger construction. The old tower was kept in place.

Saint Antony's church

The first church built on Antoniboden land was mentioned in records in the 15th century, but it is older than that. Today's church was completed with its steep gabled roof was completed in 1676 and restored in the 1870s. The side statues at the high altar from 1684 depict both saints Ruprecht and Nikolaus. The Lourdes grotto features minerals from the Alpe di Siusi mountain pasture, the altarpieces come from Josef Moroder Lusenberg, and the sculptures from Val Gardena artists.