Over the second half of the 20th century, the monastery was turned into a cultural fixture with annual concerts of Classical music and a museum of its history.

This isolated locale, Alpirsbach, was inspired by the Hirsau Reform,[3] which sought to free the Church from the control of the nobility.

[4] It entered an economic boom in the 15th century,[3] a period marked by monastic reform that Alpirsbach's monks, who were mostly local nobility, tried to resist.

In 1479, Hieronymous Hulzing was elected as abbot of Alpirsbach and began a series of construction projects, but also joined the Bursfelde Congregation, a coalition of reformist Benedictine monasteries.

[4] In 1522, Alpirsbach's prior, a monk named Ambrosius Blarer, left the monastery for his native Constance after being stripped of his position.

Among the items was a pair of men's pants, 17 leather shoes, and shirts consistent with the attire of the seminary students.

Renovations on the abbey square from March to August 2020, which had moved its entrance, caused much confusion for returning visitors.

[9] No major alterations or additions were made to the monastery during the period of the Renaissance, though Renaissance-influenced murals are present in the dormitories.

[3] The abbey church is a three-aisled, Romanesque basilica on a cruciform plan,[2][19] dedicated to Saint Nicholas, and consecrated in May 1128 by Bishop Ulrich II of Constance [de].

The tympanum above the narthex entrance,[19] carved around 1150, shows Jesus Christ at its center, seated on a throne and wreathed in a mandorla and flanked by two angels.

[22] The choir stalls, reduced in number and size since the Middle Ages, are presently on the second floor of the cloister's south wing.

Paint is still present on the ornamental canopies of the back row, and the cheeks at either end of the stalls have carved images of Saints Vitus and Jerome.

When opened, it displays the life of Mary through the paintings of the Annunciation on the left and the Visitation on the right, and the Coronation of the Virgin in the central carved image.

[24] Attached to the north side of the facade, flanking the choir, is the bell tower, 43.5 meters (143 ft) tall.

In the mid-12th century, shortly after the completion of the church, another story was added to the tower, built of ornamental ashlar that also corresponds to Upper Rhenish Romanesque masonry.

The cloister was rebuilt by Abbot Hulzing from 1480 in the Gothic style, which replaced all of the original Romanesque, except for a section of the east wing.

[22] The dormitory was originally a large, open room that in the late 15th century was subdivided into cells with half-timber walls that were painted with faux brickwork and, later, graffiti by seminary students.

The second floor of the cloister allowed the addition of another row of cells, entered via a short staircase to account for the difference in height.

Much of its collection comes from the 1958 find of apparel, letters and ledgers of paper or parchment, tiles, bricks, and gaming paraphernalia.