History

To­geth­er with his broth­er Klaus, Hein­rich Ge­bert (6 July 1917, Rap­per­swil, until 8 Au­gust 2007, Wollerau) took over the man­age­ment of their par­ents' plumb­ing com­pany in Rap­per­swil in 1953, which was from then on run under the com­pany name "Ge­ber­it". They sub­sequently ex­pan­ded the busi­ness to be­come Europe's lead­ing man­u­fac­turer of flush­ing sys­tems and other san­it­ary in­stall­a­tions. The two broth­ers sold the com­pany in 1997 be­cause no suc­cessor could be found with­in the fam­ily.

After Hein­rich Ge­bert with­drew from act­ive busi­ness life, he de­voted him­self to re­gion­al and so­cial pro­jects, es­tab­lished char­it­able or­gan­isa­tions and sup­por­ted artist­ic cre­ation. In 1996, he provided the cap­it­al stock for the Rehmann Mu­seum in Laufen­burg. The Ge­bert Rüf Found­a­tion Basel, a sci­entif­ic found­a­tion es­tab­lished in 1998 with the aim of strength­en­ing Switzer­land as a lead­ing busi­ness loc­a­tion, at­trac­ted a high de­gree of at­ten­tion.

The Hein­rich Ge­bert Kul­turstif­tung Ap­pen­zell was foun­ded in Hein­rich Ge­bert's per­son­al friend­ship with the paint­er Carl Wal­ter Liner. Ge­bert's com­mit­ment to mod­ern and con­tem­por­ary art and cul­ture began already back in the 1950s with the es­tab­lish­ment of an ex­tens­ive col­lec­tion of works by Carl Au­gust and Carl Wal­ter Liner. In 1997 he ini­ti­ated the "Stif­tung Mu­seum Carl Liner Vater und Sohn" (Carl Liner Fath­er and Son Found­a­tion) in Ap­pen­zell, which was re­named the Hein­rich Ge­bert Kul­turstif­tung Ap­pen­zell in 2014. In 1998, the "Mu­seum Liner Ap­pen­zell" (today: Kun­st­mu­seum Ap­pen­zell) was opened, de­signed by An­nette Gigon & Mike Guyer, Zurich. The build­ing was clas­si­fied as a monu­ment cat­egory B from the be­gin­ning.

In 2000, the co­oper­a­tion with the Fondazione Mar­guer­ite Arp-Ha­gen­bach in Lo­c­arno-Sol­duno was ini­ti­ated. The Fondazione Mar­guer­ite Arp was com­ple­men­ted in 2013/14 with the con­struc­tion of a new show de­pos­it­ory, built by An­nette Gigon & Mike Guyer, Zurich.

The Hein­rich Ge­bert Kul­turstif­tung Ap­pen­zell opened the Kun­sthalle Ziegel­hütte (since 2022: Kun­sthalle Ap­pen­zell) in 2003. The old brick­works, built around a 16th cen­tury kiln, was con­ver­ted into a mul­ti­func­tion­al build­ing by ar­chi­tect Robert Bamert, St. Gal­len. It com­bines ex­hib­i­tion ar­chi­tec­ture, in­dus­tri­al monu­ment, stage and event venue. The open­ing marked the be­gin­ning of the clas­sic­al con­cert series on the plat­form above the kiln every 1st Fri­day of the month.

Hein­rich Ge­bert made pos­sible both the con­struc­tion of the Kun­st­mu­seum Ap­pen­zell and that of the Kun­sthalle Ap­pen­zell and en­sured their op­er­a­tion by provid­ing fin­an­cial re­sources. He donated part of his private art col­lec­tion to the Found­a­tion in 1998 and 2003/04, which Myri­am Ge­bert sup­ple­men­ted in 2007 with works from her art col­lec­tion. In 2007 Hein­rich Ge­bert died. Myri­am Ge­bert was a mem­ber of the Board of Found­a­tion of the Hein­rich Ge­bert Kul­turstif­tung Ap­pen­zell until 2022.