We landed in Basel and took the free bus to the main train station. With a wooden ceiling and paintings of the Alps, it really felt like we were in Switzerland. We had a delicious breakfast at a cafe next to the station. Then we stored our suitcases in the luggage lockers at the station so we could head off unencumbered to Dornach by tram, which is a nearby town where the Goetheanum is located. As two Waldorf teachers, the Goetheanum is like the mecca of Waldorf for Roel and me. It is where Rudolf Steiner lived and had the first conversations about Anthroposophy, the wide-ranging philosophy on self and soul development from which Waldorf education springs.
But before we arrived, we got off a few steps early from the tram and had a lovely walk through a small Swiss village. We came across a beautiful church that we went into—ornately decorated, it felt closer in style to ornate Italian churches than the stark interiors of the Protestant churches of the Netherlands.
We finally meandered our way to the Goetheanum, which was a spectacular sight to behold. Set atop a hill, surrounded by green hills where sheep and donkeys were grazing, sits a completely unique, imposing building. Surrounding the Goetheanum are lots of other buildings all designed and built in unique styles. Later in the day we had a tour, so we wandered around on our own first for a while, visited the bookstore where I found some lovely books and paintings to bring back home, and then visited the local biodynamic/organic market and had a picnic in the grass on the grounds.
We met the biodynamic farmer of the Goetheanum, who was a Dutch man from Friesland. Roel mentioned my last name was Postma, and he asked if I had visited Friesland yet to get a feel of my ancestors. Not yet!
We then had a tour from a lovely South African Anthroposophist. I was most struck by the Red Window, which I was not allowed to take photos of, but is a massive stained glass triptych depicting the development of a soul.
It really resonated and could summarize Anthroposophy in a way.
We also got to see an enormous 3D model of the original Goetheanum, which, made of wood, burned down in the early 1920s only a few years after being built. While still unique, organic, and abstract, it was more classical and inviting than the current Goetheanum.
Steiner said the first Goetheanum could be built anywhere, and when faced with redesigning the second Goetheanum, he wanted something to reflect the local landscape as well as the changes in society after World War I, saying that nothing was the same again and that new consciousness needed to be reflected. What resulted was a building made of concrete—the largest in Europe—with angular, organic shapes. Our guide told us we could think of it like a human head: the front of the building was inviting and full of windows and was where we took in the world with our senses, while the back of the building was like our skull, closed off and where we do our internal thinking.
I was obsessed with the stairway—there was a spiral stairway, but not completely round, more angular—that was painted in colors ascending from pink to red to orange to yellow, all blended together in the lazure style that is so common in Waldorf schools. At the very top was blue. It was so beautiful.
Then the massive Representation of Man wooden sculpture that Steiner worked on with another woman until his death—it's still unfinished—but it represents the polarities in humans: the idealism and striving (which we need in life but don't want to get carried away with), and on the other hand, what pulls us down to practicality and everyday form. As a human, we must balance between these two, so the man has one hand reaching up and the other down. I appreciated "Cosmic Humor" rendered above the man as an extra add-on—it was literally added to balance the weight of the statue to keep it from toppling over—but I think it can also be appreciated that sometimes in life, we just have to laugh about it all.
After the lovely tour I wanted to find the copper shop Roel had told me about. He brought me back a beautiful copper bracelet from this tiny shop two years ago and told me about the eccentric man who made the jewelry and copper Eurythmy rods for Waldorf schools worldwide in this tiny, Hobbit-like workshop. We found it right before closing! I picked out a beautiful silver bangle-bracelet (apparently they also do silver).
Then it was time to take the tram back to Basel, which we hadn't explored yet! First, we picked up our luggage from the main train station, checked into our hotel, freshened up, and then took the tram to the city center. The city was full of trams and, as most everywhere in Europe, getting around was extremely easy. And as long as you had a lodging reservation in the city, the public transportation was free.
We walked to a beautiful overlook of the Rhine River—wow, what a big, beautiful river. On the opposite bank, we saw tons of people lounging by the river. We walked to a busy pedestrian street in the center, got dinner, and then walked around the cobblestone streets of the old town. By this point, we were both feeling very tired after a wonderful and full day, so around dusk, as the sun started to set, we made our way back to our hotel for some hot showers and a good night's sleep.
