Aargauer Literaturhaus


The Aargauer Literaturhaus is a cultural institution in Lenzburg dedicated to the popularization of literature and literary practices. It carries out author talks, reading conferences, and literary workshops for all ages on a regular basis. Established in 2004, it is located in the city's cultural center, the Müllerhaus, an architectural monument of the 18th century and one of the most important.
The House maintains a one-person writer's residence  – the Atelier Müllerhaus studio.
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History

The Müllerhaus, a three-story early classical mansion at 7 Bleicherain, "the most beautiful house in Aargau" half a kilometer from the Lenzburg Castle hill, was commissioned by the Lenzburg cotton industrialist and built in 1785 by the Bernese architect Carl Ahasver von Sinner. After the economic decline of the Hünerwadel dynasty at the end of the 19th century, the doctor Adolf Müller-Fischer bought the vacant town house in 1903. He opened his medical practice there and moved with his family to the second floor. Since 1987, the architectural monument is owned by the cultural and charitable Foundation of Dr. Hans Müller and Gertrude Müller, siblings and heirs of A. Müller-Fischer. In 2004, as part of a civic initiative supported by the Müller Foundation and the Aargau Board of Trustees, the institution's main financial partner since 2010, the Müllerhaus became the official address of the cantonal.

Activities

The House, which positions itself as "a place for the Word, a meeting place for readers and writers, a hospitable home for literature and people devoted to it," carries out performances of famous authors, readers' conferences, courses on writing and motivated critical reading for children, youth, and adults, as well as other literary events of national and international level, on a regular basis.
Three times a year, a noted foreign writer or translator has the opportunity to use a three-month residence at the House, the Atelier Müllerhaus studio, by personal invitation of the House's management. Among the guests of the studio were Felicitas Hoppe, Marcel Beyer, Cécile Wajsbrot, Olga Grjasnowa, Marion Poschmann,, Julya Rabinowich, Silke Scheuermann,, Jaroslav Rudiš, Ursula Krechel, Thomas Hettche, Mirko Bonné, Lutz Seiler,, Barbara Honigmann, Michael Kleeberg, Jan Koneffke, María Cecilia Barbetta and other authors.
According to the House's program manifesto, its first priority is "not to mythologize literary practice as democratic, but to make it vivid and communicative. Today, the house of literature is at the same time a substitute for that of series, films, video games, and podcasts; in it, the cultural technique of storytelling, whose tropes and memes have long since transcended all media boundaries, is archived, learned, shared, and celebrated. The Literature House is thus a house with open doors: a workshop that does not merely mediate literature, but co-creates and incubates it within itself".

Directors