Nietzsche’s life as an independent author and philosopher began with a trip to the Graubünden Alps. Despite his ill health, Nietzsche led an intense life, moving frequently yet with important encounters, such as with the young Lou von Salomé. During this decade, Nietzsche wrote and published his major works. Forty exhibition items illuminate this eventful period.

The second exhibition space also documents Nietzsche’s collapse in the first days of January 1889, and the last years of his life, when he suffered from mental illness, until his death in 1900.

In 1991, the Foundation was able to acquire the furniture that the young philology professor had ordered for his first own household in Basel at Spalenthorweg 48 in Naumburg and that he kept through several changes of residence until the end of his university career in Basel (May 1879). In its bourgeois solidity, this furniture forms a stark contrast to the great simplicity of Nietzsche’s room, which lies directly opposite it. The contrast of the two interiors reflects Nietzsche’s journey from respectable university professor to “hermit” and “fugitivus errans” (as he saw himself). Among the items to be admired in this room is the original armchair that Nietzsche purchased for his Basel household and gave to his doctor, Professor Rudolf Massini, in 1879, when he resigned from his professorship.

A facsimile of Nietzsche’s “Sils-Maria” poem hangs above the staircase leading to the first floor. Translations of the poem can be found on the left-hand wall of the staircase.

A display case provides information about the seven summers Nietzsche spent in Sils Maria and his encounters with contemporaries in the Engadine. The focus is on two representatives of his many contacts and relationships during his stay here: the writer Mathilda von Meysenbug and scholar and philosopher Heinrich von Stein.

A stained glass window by Gerhard Richter and a small reading area for visitors are located at the end of the corridor.

Virtually no other philosopher has so strongly influenced the visual arts – both modern and post-modern – as Friedrich Nietzsche. His exceptional popularity in the European art scene comes as no surprise if we think of the high importance this philosopher again and again accorded to art. In a fragment from the summer of 1885 (posthumous fragments), Nietzsche wrote:
“ In the main, I think artists know more than all of the philosophers up to now: they never lose sight of the main track on which life runs, they love the things of ‘this world’ – they love their own senses.[…]”

Since 1978, the Nietzsche House Foundation in Sils-Maria has offered artists whose work is related to the region or to Nietzsche’s thinking an opportunity to realize small exhibits at the Nietzsche House, generally they last for one year, from summer to summer (see also “Archive of past special exhibits”).