architek[tour] tirol – guide to architecture in tyrol

The new municipal office and a child-friendly multimedia library are located in two buildings of different heights, staggered one behind the other, which - overcoming the difference in level of about one storey - connect two local areas. The striking ensemble, encased in a metal façade, fits confidently into the existing, traditional village structure.

In the course of renovation, both of the faculty buildings erected at the end of the 1960s in a very similar form by Hubert Prachensky and Ernst Heiß were differently designed according to their respective uses. The building for the construction engineers now shows itself as a tower with a clear and closed façade. By contrast, the architecture building received a skin made out of variously tilted glass wings that lend the structure vibrancy and lets the house appear open.

Erected in the late 1980s by ATP on the grounds of the former Rhomberg textile factory, "Sillpark” is Innsbruck’s largest inner city shopping center. The expansion, which resulted from a competition, supplements the postmodern stock with a four-story, monolithic annex and a newly designed plaza space facing the inner city. In the building’s interior, an inner space opened over two stories is traversed by a roof made of partially printed, partially satined glass that brings a rich variety of true light into the mall.

What formerly used to be just a parking lot in the back of the old City Hall now has become an exciting mix of heterogeneous functions: city administration, city council, shopping mall, a hotel and various restaurants and cafés. Intelligently graded heights, a glass roof for the mall, plus a central "Campanile” – these are the main characteristics of an unpretentious and still very outspoken ensemble that easily and fluently manages to integrate the pre-existing older buildings and to connect to the cityscape around it.

The Penz design-hotel with its interior design by the Vienne office Jiszda & Partner, forms the northwest completion of the Town Hall area planned by Dominique Perrault. The completely glazed north façade provides the rooms with a lovely panorama view; from the outside the dark glass reflects the images of the buildings around the square. A restaurant with an American bar and terrace can be found on the completely glazed top floor.