The oldest factory of Nuutajärvi Glass was founded in 1793, and it is the oldest glass factory in Finland that is still in function. It was founded by the local manor owners, Jakob Wilhelm de Pont and Harald Furuhjelm who were granted to manufacture window glass and other glass products.
Johan Agapetus Törngren bought the manor and glass factory in 1843. His son Adolf Törngren extended Nuutajärvi production strongly in the 1850s and for example hired Belgian and French experts to increase the quality of glass. He also restructured the factory site and other buildings to a uniform ensemble.
Today Nuutajärvi factory site is still one of the most well-preserved industrial milieus in Finland representing the solid Neo-renaissance architecture style. The oldest buildings are the bell tower from the 18th century and the empire style manor house built in 1822. Worker huts have been built between 1860s and 1940s.
Nowadays the factory produces famous Finnish art glass. For instance, the birds of Oiva Toikka are made in Nuutajärvi. Nuutajärvi Glass Village is a popular tourist attraction with over 100 000 visitors yearly. It provides restaurant, conference and accomodation services. Guided tours are also available.
The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.