Marco Walli

Text and photo: Marietta Kobald, luaga.ch

No, he doesn't want to be called a lord of the castle, says Marco Walli firmly as he unloads reinforcing nets from a delivery truck at the foot of Strahlegg Castle together with a contractor. When asked if he hasn't had enough after more than eight years of renovation work on the castle, he just grins and says that he would like to cover another area in the castle courtyard with natural stones so that visitors can also sit down at a table outside. In the tower, where meter-high fir trees grew on the top of the wall until a few years ago, they can now sit at a knightly table, protected by a roof, and listen to the castle lord's stories.

Incessantly Marco is at work, no one would give him his more than 80 lenze. He bought the castle more than 50 years ago and built a log house next to it for himself and his family. Since then, he has repeatedly taken care of the decaying walls of the complex, but had to realize that his efforts were a futile endeavor. That's when he approached the Bündner Burgenverein and the preservation of historical monuments and asked for support. Since then, a lot has happened. During eight years, always in August, the board of the Bündner Burgenverein and many volunteers have taken care of the entire complex, sacrificing at least one week of vacation every year to repair the crumbling masonry. Since autumn 2013, the castle complex presents itself in excellent condition, the tower has even received stairs, landings and a roof and has thus become usable. Usable also for Marco's actual vocation, because it serves as an exhibition space for his carved and printed works of art.The carving began with a broken leg. Marco, the ski instructor, two-time CH champion and Parsenn Derby winner sat in his new house after a ski accident in 1966, unable to perform physically rigorous work. But to decorate the self-made china cabinet with notch carving, that was possible. He liked this work, so from then on, and with the support of his wife Gudrun, he devoted himself to carving, even making it his main occupation. The self-taught carver persistently taught himself the various carving techniques, initially applying them to everyday objects such as chairs, buffets, front doors and snack boards. Larger commissions followed, which challenged his creative ideas and drawing talent. In the meantime, countless works of art have left his small, well-organized workshop in Strahlegg, works of art made of wood on which entire life histories are recorded, cabinets not made of soft, easy-to-work-on Swiss stone pine, no, made of walnut or other types of hardwood supplemented with motifs made of cast pewter or with stones. Or works of art on paper, because this is also one of Marco's specialties; multicolored woodcuts with local subjects, which almost seem expressionistic. Currently, however, the printing block is at rest, too many flies, says Marco. One fly bite on the laid-out handmade paper and all the work would be for nothing. Instead, there is an almost finished large order in the workshop, a beautiful box made of walnut with pewter motifs - Marco used 23 kilos of this metal. Only inside the cabinet door something is missing, his abbreviation; it looks like the tower of Strahlegg Castle with a little pine tree on top.