Around the castle

The Hartheim Institute was reopened in 1968 under the patronage of the Upper Austrian State Charitable Association as the successor institution to the home for people with disabilities that was operated in the castle from 1898 to 1940. The organisation had been expropriated and dissolved in 1938 and then reactivated soon after the defeat of National Socialism in 1945.

With its branches in central Upper Austria, the Hartheim Institute today enjoys a reputation as a centre of excellence for the care and support of people with intellectual and multiple disabilities. In 2000 the Upper Austrian State Charitable Association was renamed Gesellschaft für soziale Initiativen (Society for Social Initiatives).

You can find further information on the website: www.institut-hartheim.at.

The Hartheim Institute also includes the following institutions, which operate in the immediate vicinity of the castle:

Manufact Salesroom:

This is a shop in the former domestic wing of the castle. It sells products from the workshops of the Hartheim Institute.

manufact focuses on quality, offering customers confidence that they are shopping with social and environmental responsibility. It primarily sells hand-made products.

Manufact Opening Hours

Monday to Friday (except public holidays): 10 am – 12 pm and 1:30 pm – 4 pm
Closed Saturdays and Sundays.

A permanent exhibition with selected works from the art brut collection of the Upper Austrian State Gallery has been installed In Café Lebenswert, directly next to Hartheim Castle – Place for Learning and Remembrance. It can be visited during the opening hours of Café Lebenswert.

Café Lebenswert Opening Hours

Monday to Thursday: 9.30 am – 3:15 pm
Friday: 9.30 am – 12:15 pm
Closed Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.
If you plan to visit Café "Lebenswert" with your group, please make a reservation. This café is run as a socially inclusive business and relies on reservations.

Telephone: +43 (0)7274/6536-542

The atelier “Neuhauserstadl”, located near Hartheim Castle, provides the opportunity for service users from the Hartheim Institute to express their creativity. Artistic activities offer them an alternative to conventional forms of communication with their environment.
The works created in the atelier demonstrate the great artistic potential that the service users have, despite or perhaps because of their disabilities. To make the participants’ creativity and imaginative ideas a reality, there needs to be thoughtful facilitation by people with artistic training.  

Neuhauserstadl Opening Hours

Atelier “Neuhauserstadl”, Arkadenweg 3, 4072 Alkoven
Monday: 8 am – 12 pm
Tuesday to Friday: 7:45 am – 4:45 pm
Closed Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.

More information at: https://www.kulturformen.at/

In what was once the domestic wing of the castle, today there is an event hall with modern equipment. It offers space for 225 people on the ground floor and 69 in the gallery. When meals are served at table, the hall can seat 220 people if the stage area is used.

For more information, please contact the parish of Alkoven at: +43 (7274) 80 00 – 0 or gemeinde(at)alkoven.ooe.gv.at