Bollingen Tower, Stone villa in canton St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Bollingen Tower is a stone building complex of four connected parts on the shore of Lake Zurich's Obersee basin in Bollingen. Its whitewashed walls carry dark, steeply pitched conical and gabled roofs; a rounded tower-like front with a red-framed window and white mullions stands at the centre, with a second round tower to the left and a smaller square structure with a pyramidal roof to the right. Thick ivy covers the lower wall, which has two small arched openings.
A Swiss psychiatrist purchased the land in 1922 and built an initial two-story round tower that was later enlarged several times. These building phases reflected the owner's evolving thoughts and needs, as he used the place as a personal retreat over many decades.
The tower displays symbols and inscriptions connected to Jung's exploration of alchemy, with philosophical texts carved in Greek and Latin on a stone cube. These markings offer those passing by a window into the spiritual questions that shaped the place.
The property remains in private ownership and is not open to the public, neither its grounds nor interior spaces. Visitors can view the exterior from the road or lake, where the stone structure is visible among the trees.
In 1950, for his 75th birthday, Jung set a stone cube on the lakeshore just west of the tower and inscribed three of its sides. One side bears a dedication in Latin; another shows Telesphoros with a lantern and a Greek text quoting Heraclitus and the Odyssey; the lake-facing side carries alchemical sayings.
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