Images of Occult Seals and Columns

GA 284 — 3 January 1911, Stuttgart

The Laying of the Foundation Stone of the Stuttgart Building

The minutes of the “Bauverein des Verbandes Stuttgarter Zweige” (Stuttgart Association of Building Societies) on the laying of the foundation stone on January 3, 1911, read as follows: “Today the foundation stone of our own house was laid. Dr. Steiner gave a long speech to the assembled crowd in the lecture hall of the Bürgermuseum. After that, the document for the laying of the foundation stone was read out and signed by architect Schmid, as well as Heim, Arenson, Unger, Völker, Kieser, del Monte, Molt, Schrack, Benkendörfer, von Sivers and Dr. Steiner. Dr. Steiner, Fräulein von Sivers with Mr. Heim, Schmid, and the board members of the three Stuttgart branches as well as the board members of the building association and Mr. Stockmeyer Jr. as guests then proceeded to the new building, where Dr. Steiner performed the laying of the foundation stone.

Of Rudolf Steiner's “longer speech” mentioned above, only the following passage has survived (see also the notes on page 140):

"We should be clear about one thing: as long as we are forced to meet in such halls, whose forms belong to a declining culture, our work must more or less meet the fate of that which is doomed. The spiritual current will only be able to bring about the new culture that it is called to bring when it will be granted to work right down to the purely physical shaping of even the walls that surround us. And spiritual life will work differently when it flows out of spaces whose dimensions are determined by spiritual science and whose forms arise from spiritual science. And you can be sure that spiritual science would come to nothing if it did not find its way into the hearts of people who are willing to make the sacrifices that a building like the one planned in Munich demands."