Take a moment to look up at the Bundesgymnasium and federal gymnasium Bludenz-this is no ordinary old school building. If these walls could talk, oh, the teenage secrets they'd spill!
Let’s rewind our story to a world that was very different: it’s October 1939, and Austria is feeling the winds of war. The Reich Ministry issues a decree: Bludenz is going to have its own school just for boys. But there was a little problem-no money for a shiny new building. So, this dream school started out tucked inside the ancient Dominican nuns’ St. Peter’s Monastery, founded all the way back in 1278 by Count Hugo I. of Werdenberg-Heiligenberg. Picture the heavy stone walls, the thick scent of old books and chalk, and the quiet shuffles of 41 nervous boys, barely more than kids, anxious and excited as they stepped into their first classroom in January 1940.
Girls, by the way, weren’t allowed to join the boys’ ranks until the second year. Maybe they were afraid the boys would start using hair gel? Who knows! But soon, the building echoed with both girls’ and boys’ laughter and grumbles about homework.
But then came chaos. The school year 1944/45 was interrupted again and again. Picture children gathered for lessons, only to hear the sudden wail of air raid sirens:. Classes were canceled, and teachers were hard to find. At one point, the classrooms transformed into a wartime field hospital-beds where desks used to be. Even stranger, in May 1945, imagine a whole regiment of Moroccan mule soldiers from the French occupying forces camping right here in the monastery. I suppose donkeys and algebra never really mixed well.
After the war, through the 1950s, things were still cramped. Many lessons took place in the tiniest classroom, a gloomy room on the ground floor, called “the Hole”-because it was just that! Only a single barred window let in a sliver of light. The school was growing and bursting at the seams like a teenager in hand-me-down shoes. So, a temporarily constructed wooden barrack was set up out by the monastery meadow, shaking and rattling every time the wind blew or children ran by.
The kids didn’t have a real gymnasium either. If you wanted to play football or do a bit of long jump, you had to hike over to the Unterstein Sports Field. Gym class? The city hall of Bludenz was as close as it got to a sports palace.
It was the school’s dynamic director, Ludwig Kert, who had had enough. After rubbing shoulders with bigwigs in America, England, and France, Director Kert cornered Chancellor Leopold Figl during a stop in Bludenz. He made an impassioned plea for a proper school. Bludenz gave the land-22,000 square meters, free of charge! The groundbreaking happened in autumn of 1956, with shovels turning soil and dreams turning real. Fast forward to July 1961, and you’d have seen none other than the Austrian President Adolf Schärf and the governor inspecting the half-built site. When the new school building in Unterstein finally opened its doors in December 1961, the sense of relief was almost as big as the new staircase. Students and teachers paraded in, proud as punch.
By 1963, the entrance hall was decorated by artwork from the talented Leopold Fetz. But you know how it is-if you give teenagers an inch, they’ll need a kilometer. The number of students shot up, and soon, even the teachers’ apartments turned into makeshift classrooms, and extra “emergency classes” squeezed into the old St. Josef Mission House until 1980.
The school continued to stretch and change shape with its growing population. In 1980, a modern addition on the eastern side soothed the overcrowding, but just for a while. A third sports hall was needed. When it opened in 1998, the echoes of bouncing balls and running feet were probably the happiest sounds in Bludenz that decade!
Jump ahead again: between 2002 and 2005, the school went through a total makeover, with a sparkling new south wing added and everything spruced up under Director Fröwis. In 2015, they celebrated 75 years-imagine the school band, old students, and proud parents swapping stories about that old room “the Hole.”
Today, almost 800 students and nearly 90 teachers fill these halls. Whether you love languages, want to dive into the mysteries of science and technology, or prefer to explore health, fitness, or business in the modern wings, there’s a path for everyone at BG Bludenz. But whatever your talent, just remember: it all started in a monastery with creaking floorboards and a classroom called “the Hole.” If you listen very carefully, you might just hear the laughter and footsteps of generations of students before you. And hey, don’t be surprised if next year, a herd of mules decides to enroll-after all, stranger things have happened here!
