C.G. Jung : « It was settled from the start that I would build near the water : I had always been curiously drawn by the scenic charm of the upper lake of Zürich, and so in 1922 I bought some land in Bollingen. »
« From the beginning I felt the Tower as in some way a place of maturation – a maternal womb or maternal figure in which I could become what I was, what I am, and will be. It gave me a feeling as if I were being reborn in stone. It is thus a concretization of the individuation process, a memorial aere perennius »
Federico Fellini, the famous Italian film director and screenwriter, wrote the following about the Bollingen Tower :
« This tower […] ressembles a small house built on the edge of the lake. Although it is gigantic, it looks like the work of a child, an object made from clay, by hand. I felt a lot of respect because it looks like a poor people’s manger, but also a bit like a small theatre, and because Jung carried out his task with the humility of an old actor, as someone who repeats the roles of old Caucasian shepherds, with a simple and mysterious ritual. Furthermore, the whole suits me, because not only does he attempt to reproduce something from Antiquity, from the Middle Ages, but it also has a very theatrical feel to it […]
We went up a small and narrow staircase in the rock and we opened a small door. First everything was dark, but then I saw a tiny, stuffy room. It had two small Gothic windows in thick alabaster, walls painted by Jung himself, mandalas and a study of different myths, and small objects… »
Loosely translated from « Mon cher Fellini », éditions Cahiers du cinéma, by Carissimo Simenon, 2003.
C.G. Jung : « At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals that come and go in the procession of the seasons. »
« In 1950 I made a kind of monument out of stone to express what the tower means to me. »
« The stone monument is located outside of the tower and acts as an explanation for it. It is an expression of the person who lives there, even though it remains incomprehensible to people. »
Translation of what’s written on the stone monument :
First side :
« Here stands the mean, uncomely stone,
‘Tis very cheap in price !
The more it is despised by fools,
The more loved by the wise. »
followed by :
« In memory of his 75th birthday, C.G. Jung erected and made this out of gratitude, in the year 1950. »
Second side (photo on the left) :
« Time is a child — playing like a child — playing a board game — the kingdom of the child. This is Telesphoros, who roams through the dark regions of this cosmos and glows like a star out of the depths. He points the way to the gates of the sun and to the land of the dreams. »
Third side (photo on the right, facing the lake) :
« I am an orphan, alone ; nevertheless I am found everywhere. I am one, but opposed to myself. I am youth and old man at one and the same time. I have known neither father nor mother, because I have had to be fetched out of the deep like a fish, or fell like a white stone from heaven. In woods and mountains I roam, but I am hidden in the innermost soul of man. I am mortal for everyone, yet I am not touched by the cycle of aeons. »
The C.G. Jung Tower is located on the border of the lake, in the wooded area in the right part of the photo.
View of the other side, in the direction of Schmerikon.
Photos taken on the border of Lake Zurich, close to the C.G. Jung Tower.
The landscape of Bollingen with the C.G. Jung Tower (in the center).
The citations on this page, with the exception of those by Fellini, are taken from the book « Memories, Dreams, Reflections », by C.G. Jung, p. 223-227.
Important : The tower is not a museum. It is privately owned by a family trust and is not open to the public.
See also the page on Bollingen : the village centre, the church, the M.L. von Franz tower.
Living places of C.G. Jung
The C.G. Jung tower in Bollingen