Carl Gustav Jung lived in Basel, Switzerland, from 1879 to 1896, in the Klein-Hüningen neighborhood, located on the right bank of the Rhine, directly across from the town of Huningue (Alsace, France).
He lived there with his parents and sister in the house shown below, which at the time was the parish house where his father served as pastor.
To the left of the entrance door, there is a commemorative plaque in German:
Carl Gustav Jung 1875–1961
Founder of analytical psychology
lived in this house
from 1879 to 1896
In MDR Jung refers to his childhood home in Klein-Hüningen, the 18th-century parish house still standing today, and the earliest impressions that visual art made on him:
« My earliest memories of art go back to those years at Klein-Hüningen. The house where my parents lived was the eighteenth-century parsonage, and in it there was a dark room. Here all the furniture was good, and old paintings hung on the walls. I particularly remember an Italian painting of David and Goliath. […] a landscape of Basel dating from the early nineteenth century. Often I would steal into that dark, sequestered room and sit for hours in front of the pictures, gazing at all this beauty. It was the only beautiful thing I knew. »
(Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 15-16)
Basel, the Rhine, and the Basel Minster (Cathedral)
When Jung entered Basel’s Gymnasium, he became aware of his social standing through his interactions with the children of the Basel bourgeoisie:
« Then, for the first time, I became aware how poor we were, that my father was a poor country parson and I a still poorer parson’s son who had holes in his shoes and had to sit for six hours in school with wet socks. »
(Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 24)
Jung’s Gymnasium (secondary school) at Münsterplatz (Cathedral Square) in Basel
The main entrance of the Gymnasium
Jung describes how he was confronted with a school environment that bored and confused him, and shares a vivid memory of his struggle to find meaning in the abstract teaching:
« School came to bore me. It took up far too much time which I would rather have spent drawing battles and playing with fire. Divinity classes were unspeakably dull, and I felt a downright fear of the mathematics class.
The teacher pretended that algebra was a perfectly natural affair, to be taken for granted, whereas I didn’t even know what numbers really were. They were not flowers, not animals, not fossils; they were nothing that could be imagined, mere quantities that resulted from counting. To my confusion these quantities were now represented by letters, which signified sounds, so that it became possible to hear them, so to speak. Oddly enough, my classmates could handle these things and found them self-evident. No one could tell me what numbers were, and I was unable even to formulate the question.
To my horror I found that no one understood my difficulty. »
(Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 27-28)
Karl Gustav Jung, the grandfather
Carl Gustav Jung was named after his paternal grandfather, a leading figure in Basel’s intellectual life during the 19th century. He was a respected physician and professor who also served as rector of the University of Basel and played a key role in the development of medical education. The memory of this prestigious ancestor—both revered and laden with expectations—left a lasting imprint on the family’s collective imagination and on Carl Gustav Jung’s personal development.
Funerary stele at Wolfgottesacker Cemetery
Dr Karl Gustav Jung
Jung’s experiences in Basel—his childhood memories, the challenges of school, and his family heritage—shaped his outlook on the world. This perspective, both grounded in reality and open to the depths of the soul, would go on to inform all of his work.
Living places of C.G. Jung
The C.G. Jung tower in Bollingen