Professors and monks under one roof – that is the plan for the Carmelite monastery in Straubing. In 2018, the Free State bought the monastery to integrate it into the Straubing campus of the Technical University of Munich (TUM). In order for offices to be able to move in there, the building has to be renovated. Five years after the purchase, it is still empty.
According to the Ministry of Science, everything is within the time frame. After the planning order was issued by the ministry in 2022, the Passau State Building Authority prepared the documents for the tender and the commissioning of further measures, a ministry spokesman said. These would now take place.
At the TUM campus, the aim is to be able to move into the rooms “in the foreseeable future”, as Rector Volker Sieber and Managing Director Norbert Fröhlich announced. It was feared that the renovation of the historic building would take a long time. The staff planned for there is temporarily accommodated in rented rooms, somewhat remote from the campus.
It is a very good project and the right solution for the subsequent use of the monastery, said Sieber and Fröhlich in unison. In view of the difficult political and economic conditions in recent years, initial difficulties were understandable. “It’s progressing now, but there shouldn’t be any further delays.”
Minister Markus Blume (CSU) said: “With the renovation of the Carmelite monastery, we are committed to combining tradition and innovation. State-of-the-art science in historic walls: that has a special charm.” Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) made a similar statement in Straubing in 2018. “For me, cross and computer, church and artificial intelligence go very well together,” he said at the time and assured the remaining fathers of the right to stay.
They live in an outbuilding of the monastery, which has been closed since 2015. In the course of the renovation, the monks are to be given a living area again. They are already involved in university operations through pastoral talks with students, said the ministry spokesman, referring to the TUM campus. He is also in contact with the diocese of Regensburg about future university pastoral work.
The Free State had bought the Carmelite Church belonging to the monastery in 2018, which was to become a university church. A ceremony had been postponed due to the corona pandemic. Now the time has come, as Minister Blume revealed: On July 1, the appointment to the university church of TUM will be celebrated with a festive church service and a state reception.
At the beginning of 2021, the Bavarian Supreme Court of Auditors (ORH) criticized the acquisition of the monastery by the state government as an “overvalue purchase”. The building and finance ministries rejected the accusation.
At the TUM campus in Straubing there are courses in biotechnology, bioeconomy and sustainability. Blume called it the “megatopics of our time” and announced: “We are investing around 160 million euros in the structural infrastructure and creating 108 jobs green technologies”.
The minister paid particular attention to the TUM’s research center for synthetic fuels (Green Fuel Center) in Straubing, where research is being carried out into the production of renewable fuels and which is closely networked with industrial partners. Markus Blume also referred to the increasing number of students in Straubing: A good 1,000 students were enrolled in the 2022/23 winter semester. That number has more than doubled in two and a half years.