The Bonadurer Workshop.
The Bonadurers were always craftsmen. A pulpit in the church of Valendas, a fountain trough, straight beams in the rooms — traces of their workshop can be found throughout the valley.
The Pulpit
In the church of Valendas stands a pulpit whose year indicates a Bonadurer — it was demonstrably carved and erected by a member of the family. Woodwork of this quality was rare in the villages of Graubünden — and a profession that the Bonadurers proudly maintained.
Another Bonadurer was responsible for several fountains in Versam. Today, one of them still stands in the upper part of the village — with a fountain statue that defies weathering.
What makes a workshop a workshop
Workshops in the villages of Graubünden were often combined workplaces: blacksmiths, carpenters, wheelwrights, and shoemakers shared buildings, tools, and knowledge. The Bonadurer workshop was primarily known for woodworking — beams, furniture, church inventory.
The following pages are taken from the 1977 Annual Report of the Rhaetian Museum in Chur. The historian Margrit Werder extensively documented the Bonadurer workshop of Arezen in it — a rare testimony to the craftsmanship of a Graubünden mountain family over several generations.
The article comprises pages 40 to 68 of the annual report and is reproduced here as a facsimile.
Werder, Margrit. The Bonadurer Workshop of Arezen. Annual Report 1977 of the Rhaetian Museum, pp. 40–68. In: Annual Reports of the Historical and Antiquarian Society of Graubünden 1977.
— Source: Rhaetian Museum Chur · StAGR (Chur) B/N 729/1
