Innosuisse supporting project aimed at transforming the monastic landscape
Lucerne - Innosuisse is supporting the MONA project, which seeks to document the history, current status, and development opportunities of Swiss monasteries. MONA is a process model powered by Artificial Intelligence. The sponsors of the project include the Kloster-Leben association, the University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons and the Chur School of Theolog
MONA (Monastery Landscape Switzerland), a process model powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), captures the history, current condition and development potential of monasteries across Switzerland. The Swiss monastic landscape is being examined from the perspectives of theology, economics, and spatial planning. Innosuisse, the Swiss Innovation Agency, is providing financial backing to the project, as detailed in a press release issued by the Lucerne-based association Kloster-Leben. The insights generated by MONA are intended to support decision-making processes focused on the sustainable transformation and subsequent use of sacred areas.
Kloster-Leben is supporting MONA with the design of the digital monastery atlas for the contextualization of Swiss monasteries in terms of social, historical, functional and spatial aspects. In addition, the association realizes monastery projects and integrates the resulting data into the AI model for evaluation. According to the press release, a comprehensive study of the monastic landscape is required in order to prevent the fragmentation of sacred structures, whereby the process also needs to anticipate the potential use cases of the future.
The project is being led by researchers from the University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons (FHGR), which is a contractual partner of Innosuisse. Other sponsors include the Chur School of Theology, the Zug Catholic Church, , the Tobel Commandery and the Abendrot Foundation. Founded in 2019, the Kloster-Leben association strives to counteract the disappearance of Christian signatures in community life and sees its mission as meaningfully preserving Christian heritage.
