architek[tour] tirol – guide to architecture in tyrol

With the objective of doing Innsbruck’s important boulevard justice in terms of design, a project, won by AllesWirdGut, was put up for tender in 2006. With a carpet-like design for the road surface made up of four different types of granite, furnishing made of brass and a differentiated lighting concept, the architects created a location full of atmosphere, which at the same time is a street and a square.

In place of the original town planned, unsatisfying and unused rest room running along the street, the new library building creates a flowing crossover from urban space to the university campus. The library is situated beneath the existing buildings and connected to the reorganised main library. The library’s roof provides much-used open space and serves as a new university town-side entrance.

The redevelopment and extra storey added to the office and business premises on the south side of the Sparkassenplatz form the completion of several years of redevelopment work carried out on the Tyrolean bank building enclosing this central Innsbrucker Square. With the objective of the reconstruction work and addition of a storey being the uniting as a homogeneous but not uniform new building, both on the inside and outside, various "room-identities” were placed on top of each other.

The development of the former "Bürgerlichen Brauhaus” area consists of a bipartite outer edge construction on the Ing.-Etzel-Straße, an "education tower” to the west of this for the BFI (institute for further advanced vocational training) and behind each other, two "town blocks” with service zones for the insurance companies on the ground floor. In addition to this there are office spaces and flats on the upper floors. Despite the size of the project, various materials, differing facades and the design of the open space, all played a part in the creation of the heterogeneous urban accommodation.

Seen as a pleasing contemporary contrast and built at the foot of Laudegg Castle (1200s) in Ladis is the "Refugio Laudegg” apartment house. The four buildings, slightly staggered in position and height, remind, with their small components and materials, of the traditional stable construction method. The new facility, the castle, restaurant, lake and impressing mountain world, together, all form a homogeneous ensemble.

The Fire Brigade and the Schwaz Mountain Rescue Operations Centre is situated directly next to the Inn and the motorway approach road. The building is mainly at the rear of the grounds thus leaving a large amount of space at the front for the emergency vehicles. The dominant part of the building tiered down towards the river and promenade, is the 18 metre high glass hose-tower, which makes the building’s function visible from quite a distance.

The school building realised by Kurt Rumplmayr is a reduced cube design, which is transparent from all sides. The building, which completes the new village square, also resembles one inside. The public functions are arranged on the ground floor around a lowered gymnastic and events hall, the classrooms on the upper floor are accessible by means of a central light flooded hall.

The last building to be built for the "Am Lohbach” residential development project was the residential and nursing home for seniors designed by Bernhard and Stefan Marte as an atrium house. An open light-flooded building with nursing rooms on the upper storeys organised as residential groups. To the east of the home is a district square with a café for the residents; the café is also open to the general public.

Hotels in the style of oversized farmhouses are still being built in Tyrol. The "Arlmont” – constructed by the Tatanka Ideenvertriebs GmbH – shows that the younger tourist generation are now starting to change their views. Instead of a carved wooden balcony, a balustrade made of a reddish coloured exposed concrete surrounds the building with its organic sweeping outline. Room high windows offer guests an ambience bathed in light.

Just 150 metres from the Galzigbahn– also planned by the Driendl* architects – the new Rendlbahn connects the town centre with the other side of the valley for the first time. The lower level of the dynamic steel, glass and concrete building is used as a bus terminal, with guests being able to directly access the gondola’s boarding area via an escalator. A long sweeping footbridge connects the end of the ski slope with the valley station, which has been integrated into the surrounding area.

Since the 1940s, the BMW-Group has been running a holiday hotel between Schloss Linderhof and Plansee. As in accordance with company philosophy, BMW intentionally built a contemporary new building. The building designed by the Vorarlberg architects Kaufmann Rüf consists of a ground floor made of in-situ concrete, onto which a completely equipped upper floor as a solid-wood-module with room-high windows was erected within a very short period of time.

In the place of a former inn, Margarethe Heubacher-Sentobe and Günther Dregelyvari designed a clear and self-evidently acting new building in which the various sections of the population – with and without impairments – and different social and communicative facilities were brought together. What emerged was a lively place for people of all age groups, with an afterschool care center for school children and a senior citizens’ room, an inn and a local grocer’s shop, as well as apartments for young families, for assisted living and a living community for handicapped people run by the Lebenshilfe. At the same time it became the center of Schwaz’s "Dorf” district, one that had been missing until then.

On the grounds of the former Tyrolean Loden Factory, located at the northern edge of Innsbruck’s Reichenau district, the largest certified passive house construction in Europe at that time was completed in 2009. Resulting from a 2005 competition, the basic urban planning concept of Architekturwerkstatt din a4 consists of three building complexes that are again respectively composed of two L-shaped structures placed against each other and form large inner courtyards through their interleaving. One building with rental apartments for NEUE HEIMAT TIROL was executed by Architekturwerkstatt din a4, the other two by Architekturhalle Wulz-König, resp., teamk2 [architects].

As part of the residential development on the former Tyrolean Loden Factory premises, the Architekturhalle Wulz-König executed a building with 128 owner-occupied apartments. Following the basic urban planning concept, two L-shaped structures facing each other form an open perimeter block development and surround a square-shaped inner courtyard. This inner courtyard lies one meter higher than the surrounding area and is accessed over two ramps at the openings on the east and west side.

Part 3 of the Lodenareal passive house complex, consisting of three open perimeter block developments, was carried out by teamk2 [architects]. Like the other two buildings, two L-shaped structures form a spacious inner courtyard here. A total of 165 rental apartments are extended for the most part and feature open spaces in the south as well as the west, and household balconies in the north, resp., east. A second façade level with story-high sliding elements provides protection for the open spaces and contributes to the structuring of the large-volume building.

With the new construction of a club house and the concomitant redesign of the village square, a common center was created for the residents of the widely scattered community of Assling, which is made up of 18 hamlets. The existing buildings arranged around the square were bound together by means of an exposed concrete podium with a back wall and roof. The club house, which completes the newly created square in the northeast, was erected adjacent to it.

From the outside, the solitary building at the university bridge – a residential building mainly built for use by students – presents itself as a shiny white "monolith” with a distinctive cut off corner and rhythmic offset window openings. A house high "entrance slot” leads to the completely different "inside world” where two bent wall slabs covered with oak slats form a paved courtyard accessible via wide loggia landings.

The extension of the house for senior citizens built during the late 1990s by Hermann Kastner is an elevated two-storey building with bright spacious rooms. Together with the original building, the L-shaped extension forms a central and protected courtyard with a café and roofed open space. A central element is a chapel built above an oval-shaped ground plan in the courtyard; this was intentionally designed as an introverted place of peace.

For the "2008 Days of Architecture”, aut. architektur und tirol commissioned a 52 m long multi-use walk-on platform in the Walther Park. The temporary building, designed by the columbosnext group, after the "Days of Architecture” remained, first until autumn, then with another permit for nearly two more years, inviting the general public to appropriate a piece of public space and use it for various purposes – and, not in the least, to stop turning their backs to the river instead of experiencing it as a vital part of the cityscape.

With the Hypo Tyrol Bank Headquarters on the Boznerplatz, a further regional bank has set new architectural trends in the town centre. The transparent building with its vertical slat covering matches the height of the surrounding buildings. With a slight bend at the corner it follows the course of the road and, towards the top of the building it develops into a top floor full of character with a glazed conference room.

Across the street from the central station and bus station, an old MPreis branch was expanded and re-shaped to become an appropriately urbane corner of this busy square, with a café and restaurant at street level. The existing building structure, reduced to its barest essentials by all kinds of miracles of stress analysis, is the spectacular eye-catcher in an otherwise rather heterogeneous mass of buildings, together with the green wavy ceiling.

The facility mainly built of visible concrete and glass, creates, in dimensionally varying layers, a crossover between the landscape, the edge of the slope and the busy road running along the Inn. The inside of the building, which from the side facing the road appears to be cubic, opens up towards the garden through the surrounding open area. Here, numerous sports facilities including an outdoor swimming pool enable children to carry out their activities.

Way back in a valley in East Tyrol, right next to a torrent, an old, traditional furnace was expanded, with the addition of a "black spatial entity” that with its oblique lighting cubes resembles a negative print of the torrent. Glass panels along the sides mark the high water line of previous floods, large windows bring lots of light into the room, and allow for a good view of the surrounding landscape.

The winning concept for the rehearsal, practicing and performance square for the village and its club, which was planned under the key note "give the festival a structure”, was selected from the architectural contest for the village’s regeneration. The main part is a passe-partout type roofed gallery which contains the copper panelled club house and festival-square with stage and, at the same time is a landscape viewing platform.

As part of the newly designed entrance area of the lake Natters camping area, the architects created a long and narrow building for the necessary infrastructure functions that sets up to now unheard of quality standards in the world of tents, caravans and mobile homes. Despite its rather large volume, the two-storey building unpretentiously sits on the lakeshore, sort of becoming part of the landscape. There, you find everything you need for a camping holiday, plus a lot of small highlights and brilliant new ideas.

As a further development of the "Am Lohbach I” project completed in 2000, the Innsbruck Stadtbau GmbH constructed a further five residential buildings. Based on the original town planning concept, Baumschlager & Eberle and driendl*architects realised the two or rather three chessboard type blocks of flats, which although next to each other are slightly offset. Generous, light-flooded development zones characterise the inside of the buildings.

Situated at an altitude of 3200 metres right in the middle of the Stubaier Glacier, the summit platform "TOP OF TYROL” offers a very impressive view across the Tyrolean Mountains. Based on the existing topography, LAAC architects designed a "symbol in the snow”, which nestles into the flowing movements of the Great Isidor’s rocky ridge and juts out nine metres above the ridge edge.

Wolfgang Pöschl extended Hotel Adler, a large Tyrolean building of the 1980s, to become a three storey high "Black Spa” in 2001. The building has a wellness area with a sauna, indoor swimming pool and fitness room and is partially sunken into the earth. In 2008 a further storey seen as a foreign body, the "Kitz Summer Spa”, was added to the existing building. The glazed ground floor was fitted with luxury suites, above these "hovers” a roof terrace with a swimming pool enveloped in shingles.

The first contemporary conversion of the hotel in the middle of Sölden, the "Liebe Sonne”, was carried out on the top floor. The roof space was originally closed at all sides, but after being opened up, is now a two-storey wellness area with the appropriate open space. During the second stage of conversion, the entrance area and the complete ground floor, with its hotel hall and restaurant, was completely renewed in a simple manner and with natural materials.

On the 70,000 m2 area of the former Tivoli Stadium a new city district arose from 2005 onwards with over 400 apartments, shops, offices, a senior citizens’ home, a nursery school and a youth center, a hotel, as well as numerous green areas and open spaces. In order to maintain as diverse and lively a district as possible, an individual architecture competition for each building was tendered. The first stage of construction, executed by Bruno Schwamberger, lies in the southeast part of the grounds directly on the South Ring Road and consists of a perimeter block development with apartments that are capped off in the east with the "Office am Tivoli”.

On the southwest corner of the inner city expansion area "Am Tivoli”, Manzl Ritsch Sandner executed a residential building with shop zones on the ground floor area. In contrast to the other buildings, the perimeter block development concept predetermined in the urban development key project is circumferentially carried out here on the ground floor only and is resolved in a building angle and a "corner cube” on the upper stories. Located in the center is a raised plaza, facing the west, which is consciously designed in an urban fashion.

Starting from the privileged location of the plot as a part of the large, green "Tivoli Lung”, Helmut Reitter carried out a permeable development according to the basic principle of "Pavilions in the Park”. The elongated structure of the "House of Children” and its counterpart, the compact cube of the "Youth Center”, offer the children and young adults spaces that create diverse visual bonds to each other, with the public park and the senior citizens’ home opposite of it.

Environmentally-conscious thinking and acting have been strongly emphasized in the community of Karrösten for many years. The village house itself, which houses the village office, a multipurpose hall, as well as a nursery school and apartments, did not meet this requirement at all. The renovation concept, which resulted from an architecture competition, not only brought the existing stock from the1960s up to a passive house quality regarding energy efficiency, but also improved the whole spatial structure around the village office, which was relocated as the connecting middle point on the ground floor.

Although the sports hall was built for the neighbouring primary school and is also used by the community’s various sports clubs, it was actually designed by the architects as a building for public use. A large part of the building, covered by a roof with a double bend, is sunken into the ground; the ground floor opens towards the road through a generously glazed foyer. A stand for 300 spectators completes the flowing crossover from the foyer down to the triple gymnasium.

The former "Speckbacher” public house has served as a boarding school since the founding of the Skiing Grammar School in the 1970s. The hipped roof house originating from the Baroque era was carefully adapted by Dieter Tuscher and Martin Weiskopf to fit modern requirements. A long new building slightly sunk into the ground was built right next to the older construction. Two room-wings and the connecting passage enclose, as a U-shape, a grassed courtyard open to the west.

In response to the town planning situation in the vicinity of the square shaped church from Horst Parson and, as a transition from residential buildings down to the banks of the Inn zone, Johannes Wiesflecker built a high-standard student’s residence with generously designed rooms and common areas all packed into two basic square buildings of different character. Beneath the building is a hollow space serving as a passage to the Inn.

Situated at the Alpkogel skiing slope in the Galtür skiing area is the "Addis Abeba[r]”, a ski hut without the usual hut romanticism. With the basic idea being a snow crystal, ventira architects placed a white cube with cut-outs and a protruding panorama window box on the slope.

When the new BTV city forum was built, the adjacent school, listed as a protected monument, was bought by the bank, to become part of the headquarters. The ground floor and the first floor were then turned into a restaurant and bar. Very subtle interventions opened the front so as to create opportunities for communication between the urban space and the interior. The materials used, the light design and the colours create a very specific atmosphere.

A solitary cube with an intriguingly structured façade of concrete, glass and larch wood – this is the annex of the Amras elementary school. Very appropriately adapting to the scale of the usually smaller, village-like buildings of a city quarter that had actually once been a small farming village, it does not add to but rather detract from, as it were, the mass of the old school building, and still manages to define e new central square for Amras.

The "village” of Igls, at the foothills of the Patscherkofel, is one of the inhabitants’ favorite leisure areas, and shortly will be declared air health resort. Right in the center of the Kurpark there is the congress centre run (as well as its much bigger "cousin” in Innsbruck) by the Innsbruck Congress and Fair Corporation. With the concept of a garden pavilion in mind, the two architects, rather than landing a solid building smack in the middle of the park, merely designed a transparent energy-saving jacket under a rounded overlapping roof. Inside your will find whatever is necessary for smaller assemblies or seminars, plus a public café where you can also sit outside.

The old Mariatal school buildings, clustering closely together, resemble an abbey. Marte-Marte architects wanted to re-develop the ensemble of buildings preserving those specific spatial qualities while, at the same time, adding architectural surplus value. The new dormitory continues, as it were, the west wing of the old building, thus closing off the ensemble from the street, creating a new interior courtyard dominated by the old main school building, under the federal law on the protection of monuments, and a new solitary structure.

All emergency calls in the region are to – or should – arrive here, and the ILL Centre then coordinates the necessary efforts of the various bodies of assistance, firefighters, ambulance services and the like. The design of the centre strives to underline this highly important function. Four concrete panels, and a central staircase, balance a sweeping and hovering oblong structure, stretching over an impressive span, which gives the firefighters’ vehicles enough room below to move in and out of their garages and, at the same time, creates a "roofed-in” exterior space.

The Olperer Hut built at an altitude of almost 2.400 metres in the Zillertaler Alps is an intentional and simple answer to the unique and exposed location. The main objective was to develop a very simple shelter to fit the high alpine location. A refuge for hikers and mountaineers with its innovation being in its simplicity.

The glacier terminal extension provides the existing Stubaier glacier cable lift valley station with a new reception area. The extension connects the existing heterogeneous buildings and, for the first time presents the single and double cable lifts as a single unit. A form-giving element is the curved and greened roof, beneath this is the transparent cladding of the lifts reception area.

In 2007 the "Sunna Alm” at the Pitztaler Glacier and Rifflsee ski resort was Europe’s first passive house to be built at an altitude of 2300 metres. Both the inside and outside of the restaurant building are characterised by wood and glass, with which modern tourism and traditional mountain life are connected without slipping into the embarrassing cliché of being rustic. The outside of the building was deliberately finished in larch-wood-shingle as a reference to Josef Lackner’s Rifflsee cable car valley station.

Directly in the centre of Matrei is the now historic hotel Hinteregger. The architects used a former cinema hall as a supporting structure for the extension of the northeast wing. The former outside wall was plastered with clay and integrated as a "heating wall”, a wooden construction at loggia level was placed ahead. A wellness zone has been set up on the first floor; its completely glazed front opens the room towards the garden.

The McTirol (former CUBE Biberwier) can be found at the edge of the town centre directly next to the Marienberg lift. Its concept has been adjusted to fit active sports holidaymakers, its design is an element of lifestyle. The inside of the Cube, which from the outside is plain, has an open interior design with ramps and generous open zones to accommodate for hotel life, which first and foremost, is kept out of the rooms.

After the Bergisel ski jump, the four station buildings and the oblique suspension bridge across the river make up the second project Zaha Hadid realised in Innsbruck. Starting from the fundamental concept of a shell and the shadow thrown by it, she designed an organically shaped glass shell over a concrete landscape, the translucent roof spreading and extending, as it were, the stations’ spaces, thus staging a drama of movement adapted to the particular character of each location.

Executed by Architekturhalle Wulz-König, Component 4 is a reinterpretation of the perimeter block development arising from the natural slope of the construction site. The base of the building incised into the west of the slope is opened towards the northeast, corresponding to the incline. Lying above the base, the five to seven residential stories are distinctly raised from the streetscape. Broad recesses break through the perimeter block development in two places and afford lateral views to the south and west.

A senior citizens’ residential home is located at a central point of the inner city expansion area "Am Tivoli”. The residential floors are arranged around an inner courtyard and placed onto a recessed base story where the public facilities are housed. Despite the compactness and the required, compartmentalized structure, the clear architectural language of the cubic building conveys a generous sense of space.

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.

The goal of the redevelopment was to transform the town center, strongly impacted by traffic in the past, into a publically usable space with amenity qualities. By reducing the road width, space for wider sidewalks and plaza-like extensions were created, which were designed with granite plates of different sizes. Information points, fountains, benches, rows of trees and plant and flower beds structure the street space; a lighting concept ensures that the various areas are more or less brightly illuminated according to their significance.

Built on a lot opposite the town hall, the Cultural Center consists of a monolithic, formally independent structure that creates an identification point in the heterogeneously developed community. Sitting above a pervious ground floor is a protruding, closed upper floor with a multifunctional event hall that is shaped in such a way that the large volume does not appear in its full height from the street side.

Based on town planning considerations, the new secondary modern school building was designed so that together with the polytechnic and nursery school, it would create an integrated spacious premises. The inside of the "passive house” school is flooded with light. The school’s central hall opens up into a space illuminated from above, around this an open staircase providing access to the class and group rooms.

As part of necessary redevelopment measures, the Economic Chamber - Kufstein District Office was restructured and raised in height. The ground floor was completely gutted and opened up to become a vestibule. A second storey was built on top, thus turning the building into a compact – above the ground floor – suspended and combined body.

A former office on the first floor of a house, again listed under the federal law on the protection of monuments, was turned into a restaurant where one can take part, as it were, in the visual and acoustic drama that is happening in the street, and then switch effortlessly to concentrating on the works of art provided by the kitchen. The wide oriel window in front is as much part of the street’s public space as it works as a theatre box to look out from within, from an interior space characterised by black panels and various kinds of dark wood.

After the Bergisel ski jump, the four station buildings and the oblique suspension bridge across the river make up the second project Zaha Hadid realised in Innsbruck. Starting from the fundamental concept of a shell and the shadow thrown by it, she designed an organically shaped glass shell over a concrete landscape, the translucent roof spreading and extending, as it were, the stations’ spaces, thus staging a drama of movement adapted to the particular character of each location.

The entrance and the shop rooms of an old building, which comes under the federal law on the protection of monuments, had to be adapted to house an optician’s shop. The long main room, with a baroque vault, was returned, as far as possible, to its original state. A sculptural piece of furniture with a tapestry of red felt, and a working table covered by green rubber stand free of the walls to counterpoint the historical brickwork.

Together, the new solitary music school building, the revitalisation of the neighbouring "Klösterles” (Konvent) and a subterranean connecting passage, all form a joint architectural structure developed at a prominent town location. The building links three neighbouring spaces to form a new town centre. The new building’s glass façade opens up towards the market square; a semi-transparent layer of expanded copper provides privacy and serves as protection from the sun.

The small holiday apartment facility "Aradira” – name of Rhaeto-Romanic origin – consists of four apartment villas arranged terrace-shaped along the slope. Each unit offers guests maximum privacy, a small sauna and wellness facility is available for shared use.

Situated directly in the centre of Serfaus is the generously designed Arche holiday home. Above the ground floor, in which apart from the living area there is a self-sufficient holiday flat, is a protruding wooden box with four large bedrooms. Slightly at an angle to this, the top floor offering guests a large wellness area including an atrium and restroom and a view of the skies.

The Pezid apartments in Serfaus are a classic example of the intelligent restructuring of post war architectural "burdens of the past”. The old, hardly ever put to use balcony façade, was transformed into useful space with loggias with "reclining-chair-oriels” integrated on the inside. In 2007 this transformation to a "modern-mountain-hotel” was awarded the BTV (bank for Tyrol and Vorarlberg) - Building-Owner-Award-Tyrol.

The new centre of the Olympic Village, the winning project of a Europan competition, is said to be, and really is, a textbook example of urban density added to a pre-existing tissue, injecting also new meaning and creating a new identity for "suburbia”. The L-shaped building consists of a lower part containing shopping areas and public institutions like a kindergarten and a 16-storey residential tower, and encloses a square with (fortunately only) few pieces of urban furniture, thus leaving a lot of space for a variety of potential uses, creating a stage for the every-day vitality this city district is able to exude.

The centre is situated next to the church, the churchyard and the seat of the municipality of the large village of Rum. The complex of one-storey and two-storey buildings, respectful of the more rural character of the village, reflects the proportions of the surrounding buildings. The nicely renovated old seat of the village administration, a stage and grandstand with a roof, for all types of events, and the other parts of the complex together shape a graciously designed square.

The Galzigbahn valley station presents itself as a very individual and at first sight, strange artificial design. However, the glass-steel-concrete building is by no means an architectural self-dramatisation, but a form developed directly from the innovative cable lift technology. A sweeping building with a glass roof rises above massive concrete head walls. This portrays the lifts sequence of motions and reveals the technical inner mechanism.

An extension has been built onto the Skiing Academy formerly known as the Federal Sports Home. The new building has six levels, all part of a ski training centre – from a seminar hall at sub-basement level to a sauna and wellness area on the roof. The independent large form of the crystalline shaped building attempts to meet the requirements of its location without matching the traditional alpine type of design too much.

The Ahorn mountain and valley stations in Mayrhofen in the Zillertal both differ from many other contemporary lifts due to their precise association with the location and landscape. It’s not the highly complex technological "content” as a shuttle-lift – which alone due to the technology requires very high structures – that puts them into focus, but the constructive dialogue of the station’s high constructions with their respective surroundings.

The pedestrian and bicycle bridge, a four-field steel composite structure running next to the four-lane "Olympia Bridge,” spans 250 meters over the railroad tracks of Innsbruck’s Main Railway Station and the Sill River. Blinding out the car traffic, the 300-meter-long parapet beam bends as a dynamically formed separator element from east to west. A large-scale exposed concrete beam breaks away from the terrain in the east and shows the stairs.

In close vicinity to the existing town hall, a second, barrier-free administration building was erected for the community. The heterogeneous, rurally structured setting and the steeply rising slope of the Blasiusberg Mountain defined the scale, shape and materiality of the new structure. As if growing out of the slope, a corten-steel roof edges its way over the otherwise very transparently kept building.

Like the Glocknerhaus planned several years previously by the same architects, the community center enters into a dialog with the topographic conditions and the township of Ködnitz, which is characterized by the parish church and the late Gothic rectory. The four-story, compact structure with flat roofs and horizontal lines establishes a very serene relationship to the existing stock, without compromising it in its singularity.

The BTV City Forum, right in the centre of the city core, is the bank’s new company headquarter, containing offices, an ample customers’ centre, an event hall and rooms for contemporary art and photography expositions. The sculptural building complex fits in well with the pre-existing Gruenderzeit block structure, the corner being marked by a striking tower. The core of the building is the grand soaring hall.

The stations originally designed in the late 1920s by Franz Baumann certainly are some of the most important monuments of modernism in Tyrol. In the course of a technological upgrade of the cable railway, the stations had inevitably to be adapted both functionally and spatially. All the necessary interventions, however, were developed strictly along the lines of either severely restoring the original building as designed by Baumann, thus cancelling all later additions, or ostentatiously showing contemporary additions to be just that: changes added because they were necessary.

When the municipal corporation IKB decided to move workshops and warehouses, demolishing the old buildings in the backyard of the company headquarter, this was an opportunity for the regional government to concentrate some services formerly scattered over various places. At the same time, it was possible to create new public spaces and passages to link the city centre with the Wilten district. The offices are grouped around three green interior courtyards with glass roofs, an atrium doubling as the central lounge and two more passage-like entrances guarantee easy accessibility for the public.

What formerly had been the university botanic garden is now a park-like public green with old trees right in the centre of town. By situating the transparent structure of the new elementary school along Angerzellgasse, and by building three underground gyms – which are used by the adjacent high school as well – it was possible not to disturb the park as a peaceful "green island” in the hectic inner city.

The panorama restaurant with its congress centre on top of the 2.620 metres high Pardatschgrat in the Ischgl skiing area is distinguished by its simple forms and materials. A particular challenge during the construction of the two buildings was to find a technological solution to compensate for the frost-thaw rising and sinking of the ground below.

This is another one of the office buildings designed by Johannes Wiesflecker to make up the new Sparkasse headquarters along Sparkassenplatz. The adjacent, older, building became part, in a way, of the square’s re-design: In cooperation with the landscape architect Rainer Schmidt, the building’s front was turned into a "green wall”.

The central bus station shapes the southern fringe of the station square. The hotel there was conceived as the counterpart, not only as far as dimensions were concerned, to the station hall. While the station hall is a cube of light below street level, the hotel is a black monolith above street level and, at the same time, keeps waiting bus passengers in the spacious area underneath safe from any bad weather.

At a slight distance from the Reschenpass-Straße, the MPREIS supermarket curves along the gentle back of a slope towards the Schloßberg. The inside offers a high two-part illuminated main room with a visible wooden construction area for the shelves for goods. For the daylight sensitive fresh goods, a low, closed, element as an introverted backbone embedded in the slope.

During the 1980s, Hotel Windegg was reconstructed and extended in a contemporary and landscape related manner by the architect Hans Peter Petri. After changing hands, the hotel was converted for a second time, whereby the bedroom wing and the striking staircase tower remained in place. Heinz-Mathoi-Streli constructed a new three-storey building directly next to the hotel. This building, with its vertical larch-wood façade, is clearly different from the original white building.

The tree trunks surrounding the cubic glass building are the characteristic feature of this supermarket. The untreated spruce trunks stripped of their bark have been placed at irregular intervals forming a homogeneous construction. They also provide a functional filter in front of the roof-high fixed glazing, define protected outside-areas and spaces in between and, allow interesting "light and shadow shows” to take place inside the building.

Next to Perrault’s City Hall and mall, a private investor commissioned an apartment and office building on Anichstraße, the ground floor passage also serves as the southern entrance to the mall. Here, Perrault designed a tower in different shades of dark colours, with a 20 m golden metal curtain in front - an allusion, of course, to the famous Golden Roof - that stages a striking entrance to the mall, since this was not possible on Maria-Theresien-Straße, out of respect for the conservation of monuments.

A very urbane, if not metropolitan café in a 15th century building listed as a monument? Yes, that is what the "Manna" is. The narrow room, partly stretching over two storeys, is virtually subdivided by a rather complex spatial organisation, the materials – predominantly oak and black glass – contrast the historical substance.

With the use of prefabricated wooden components, a constructional, functional and artistic unsatisfactory building was – without disturbing the operational service – redeveloped and converted from a retirement home into a nursing home. The more or less disused terrace balconies were removed and the rooms extended by means of box type modules. The façade was covered in sheet-copper panels, colourful sun blinds contribute to making the building look much nicer.

The compact common school centre belonging to the four valley communities is at a right angle to the valley; its horizontal position blends with surrounding nature. The outside of the building reacts with the location’s rough climate; the inside consists of bright rooms, which have been adapted to fit their various uses with their colour and shapes. The triple gymnasium has been sunken halfway into the ground; the roof can be used for breaks and as open space.

The bookstore on Sparkassenplatz, by Rainer Köberl, is a "black box” for books. Through two big store windows one can look into the store. Before and behind the windows there is a lot of space for books to be presented. The floor, the walls, the ceiling and the furniture – everything is black, so everybody’s attention will be focussed on the true stars of the production: the books.

Amidst architecturally heterogeneous buildings, the Isser optician’s shop creates a space for the eyes to rest. Almost unimpaired, passers-by can look into the show and sales area and concentrate on the goods presented there, since the purist design refrains from distracting their attention.

A long-stretching red cover encloses the Innsbruck Central Station; its main level had been lowered down to be directly accessible from the underground parking lot. The spacious grand hall with a gallery houses the railway’s customer area, shops, cafés and restaurants. The perforated concrete cover engulfs all the building’s functions and allows quick and furtive, filtered, as it were, glances from the platforms into the city.

At the same time the Central Station was re-built, the station square was re-designed. Separate lanes for car traffic and public transport, and an underground parking lot directly accessible from the station hall make sure that different modes of transport do not interfere with one another. The asphalt’s artificial red color nicely relates to the station building.

The individual stores of the MPreis food chain, which was the first to use high quality architecture to express its corporate identity, are designed by ever varying architects to precisely fit into or react to a specific context. This one, situated on the lower level of the Central Station, without daylight, is a "glittering cave”. Black glass panels form the ceiling and mirror the goods staged on brightly lit shelves and the customers, thus creating a theatre of goods that refuses to be imprisoned by well-defined limits of space.

Covered by something like a crochet veil of bronze sheets, and actually rather small in comparison to the looming apartment buildings, the building of the bank’s branch office is hovering over the halfway underground customer parking lot. With a small square in front, and the drive-in telling machine, this precious little jewelery box of a bank projects a new urban quality into what before had been just another suburban block.

The research and teaching campus of the Eduard Wallnöfer Centre for medical innovation is situated in the middle of a spacious park near the Old Town of Hall.
The architects designed the abstract glass cube, which is accentuated by angular perforated sheet metal sun-blocking blades, as a forceful counterpoint to the surrounding park-scape. A two-storey assembly hall defines the center of the atrium-type building, which houses a private university and other educational institutions.

The general idea was to bridge the gap between the Old Town and the residential area farther to the east with a third university building along Milserstraße.
Thus, a classy student dormitory housing also a kindergarten was added to round up the EWZ campus. Just as the university building itself, the dormitory is designed as an atrium-type house. Around the open interior space, there is a cluster of social rooms for general use, with generously spacious terraces, while from their private rooms the students can look out into the park.

AllesWirdGut constructed a church for the St. Anton Vicarage, with living accommodation for the minister and his guests, a parish office, a leisure room for local youths and, sleeping accommodation for those who would like to take a rest whilst on a pilgrimage along the "Way of St. James” to Santiago de Compostela. By making use of the slope facing towards the south and the spatial possibilities provided by a steep gable ended roof, it was possible to accommodate all functions in a compact four storey building.

Such as the Church Centre constructed by AllesWirdGut, the nursery school also forms an artistic unit in accordance with town planning ideas. The building is situated at the northeast edge of the plot, thus at a distance from the busy road. Large windows and a saw-tooth roof allow light to flood the inside of the building, which, right down to the very last detail, is adapted to suit children. In 2016, the kindergarten was expanded with a one-storey wooden building (architecture: Karl Gitterle).

The cautious renovation of an old farmhouse and the new building extension with four holiday flats provides a new interpretation of the topic of "Old-New”. In place of the old stables, a massive structure with the original building’s dimensions was constructed and then covered with the old stable’s planks – a refreshing approach based on the transferring of the customary.

The small family owned boarding house in Sillian was converted and extended by the architect Peter Jungmann. The original building’s ground floor was opened as a dining room and fireplace-lobby, a terrace facing towards the south was added. The flat extension building with eight hotel rooms was completed using local building materials and furnished with harmonious materials and detail.

With the "Tuum,” ("tower”), the village center of Oetz possesses one of the oldest and most significant secular buildings in the Ötztal Valley, which was made accessible to the public through the complete refurbishment and adaptation of the museum. The unobtrusive exterior design, the staging of the route guidance and the design of the additions needed for museum operation form an exciting dialog with the historic stock.

With the "Haus Valgrata” a distinctive building in which various communal institutions were brought together arose at the edge of the village. Adjacent to the existing fire brigade house with a hall for cultural events, the recycling center and construction yard were accommodated in an elongated structure. Its roof forms a large entrance stairway and ends in a new plaza. Located behind it are the foyer and multipurpose hall, which were realized for the most part as superstructure extending above the state road.

Set into the landscape in a self-confident and eye-catching manner, the glass building – deriving from a contest put up for tender – accommodates a "work-landscape” in the form of an open-plan office. Three inner courtyards and the transparent façade allow the building to be penetrated with light and green-nature, slight level differences allow varying perspectives between the "winding” offices and terraces and the parking space "pushed” under the building.

This part of the former Adambräu brewery, a landmark industrial building of classical modernism by Lois Welzenbacher, came under the federal law on the protection of monuments when the brewery closed down. Most respectful, nearly invisible interventions turned the functionalist structure into what might be described as a pulsating machine to convey architecture. On the lower floors,aut. architektur und tirol continually proposes exhibitions and lectures on contemporary architecture, the upper floors are occupied by the University Architecture Archive.

The cubic structure, and its translucent skin – an alien here – provoked controversial discussions. This 21st century building asserts itself, un-self-consciously, against the adjacent baroque Taxis palace, the Servites’ Church across the street, and the square in front of the seat of the regional government behind. And still it sensitively fits into the urban tissue, respecting proportions and historical axes and throughways.

Resulting from the grounds available and the town planning situation, the Kirchbichl MPREIS was constructed as an organic sweeping building. The mainly closed construction is illuminated indirectly from above; only the baguette-café enjoys an all-round open view. On the inside the curves influence the visible concrete shell; a suspended birch plywood ceiling the rooms atmosphere.

On a street corner of a densely built town area next to, at present, two vacant sites, riccione architects have built a solitary building with the possibility of future extensions. Above the ground floor, in which, apart from a lowered music hall, the town archive and the town library are accommodated, are three optically detached upper storeys for the school’s classrooms. Generously sized glazing and powder coated aluminium panels influence the building, which despite its transparency and openness, complies with all acoustic requirements.

After long years of having to cope with a lack of working space, finally the rehearsal stages and workshops were transferred to an annex building. The various functions can easily be read from the outside as an addition of various different spatial structures, the piled-up units are obviously inviting future additions whenever necessary.

The MPREIS supermarket is situated 3 m below road level, all one sees, when looking from the village center, is a hovering roof, because the mass of the market building and entrance area is nestling against a slight turn of the road. A café, a terrace and a children’s playground, and additional spaces for various other shops make sure this supermarket serves as a village meeting point where people can do more than just their everyday shopping.

Next to the former Seeber tower hotel designed, in the Thirties, by Lois Welzenbacher, the architects placed a second solitaire whose shape, materials and colours boldly contrast with the older building. The Welzenbacher building, a white angular cube with balconies whose situation and shape suggest a circular movement, was beautifully retrofitted, and can now enter into an exciting dialogue with the new conical glass tower. At their base, the towers are linked by a building containing the lobby as well as a café and restaurant.

Hasegg Castle with the twelve-angle mint tower is the landmark of the town of Hall. Originally, it dates back to the 13th century, but had undergone rather chaotic growth over the centuries. With a few very intelligent and respectful interventions, it was possible to implant a museum. A "must see” is the historic mint tower with its two staircases which you now can enter using a new sculptural steel spiral staircase.

For many years the steep south slope next to the road leading to the Arlberg Pass was considered as being unsuitable for development. To realise the "Lux Alpinae” construction, the slope was dug out three storeys deep, a two-part building was constructed close to the slope. The rooms, accessible via a loggia landing, have room-high glass fronts and protruding balconies facing towards the south. Finally, a curved shell roof gives the glass, steel and exposed concrete hotel building a dynamic look.

Arising from a competition, the housing development set new standards in social housing at the time of its construction. Despite the high density, Georg Driendl succeeded in creating a permeable housing development with high atmospheric quality on a narrow parcel on the banks of the Inn. A total of 120 apartments are placed in three six-story structures, whose visual appearance is characterized by rear-ventilated glass façades and the colorful glass skin of the balconies.

Dominique Perrault was the first architect not resident in Tyrol to be entrusted with the setting up of, in the meantime, three supermarkets by MPREIS, two in Wattens and one in Zirl. The SuperM on the main road to Wattens is situated in the middle of a heterogeneous built-up-area. Perrault reacted to this with a materiality and constructively light and open building with a yard type recess, which together with the small protruding square, forms an urban centre.

The starting point for the project was the inn that was missing in the village—what followed was a new town policy, which was awarded with the "Building Culture Community Prize” in 2012. The founding of a village renewal commission preceded the construction of the new multipurpose structure. A competition was consequently tendered with Dorferneuerung Tirol (Village Renewal Tyrol). The result is a crystalline structure, conceived in reaction to the exposed slope, with the fire brigade together with a practice forecourt in the lower area and the public functions, including the large event hall, in the overlying element that protrudes eight meters outwards.

In 1973, Viktor Hufnagl, an architect from Vienna, constructed a hall-school, which at the time was a revolutionary concept, hence, an experimental building for the prefabrication of schools. Due to problems with the building’s structural design it was necessary to redevelop the school complex. The redevelopment carried out by Peter Märkli and Gody Kühnis preserves the old building’s room and material qualities, reinterprets its character and modifies it with use of contemporary means.

Here, Dominique Perrault, architect of the new City Hall and mall, created a public space over the roofs of the city. With glass walls all around, nothing interferes with the perfect view over the roofs and cupolas of the city centre, over old and new towers, to the mountain tops. Not an everyday sight, but a place to rest for a while.

On the SOWI campus the "Solo Pasta” restaurant and then the "Solo Vino” n. 1 und 2 wine bars opened in rapid succession one after another. All three are characterised by a minimalist and everything but Zeitgeist-minded design making use of few and sensitively tuned materials. Customers can freely walk from one to the other rooms. Following a change in ownership, there has been some refurbishment not quite in line with the original concept

The Hoadlhaus panorama-restaurant in the Axamer Lizum is a steel and glass construction offering a 360° view. The façade facing towards the south consists of seven large glass roll-up doors, which can be completely drawn into the roof’s wooden dropped ceiling. If the weather is fine the mountain restaurant’s conservatory can be transformed into a huge sun terrace.

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.

At the east border of Wörgl in an almost American "strip-situation” is one of Tyrol’s largest MPREIS supermarkets. In the heterogeneous (still growing) development area, Pöschl placed a bridge type building on five cylinders at right angles to the road. On the west side of the building a concave screen shade reaches out from the protruding roof across almost the complete height of the building. The space in between provides room for the fitness centre on the top floor.

The new Bergisel ski jump is a landmark that is visible from most every part of town. The various functional elements, while still perfectly and precisely serving their purpose as mere instruments of sports competition, were moulded into an elegantly sculptural and expressively dynamic construction symbolising the ski jumper’s movement.

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 State Hospital and University Clinics, on the western fringe of the city centre – originally built towards the end of the 19th century on what was then an empty lot on the outskirts of town – is a "city within the city”. The medical centre on Anichstraße replaced the former gynaecological and ophthalmic wards, the architects organized 40.000 cubic meters in six storeys, around two spacious interior courtyards, so as to give a new spatial order to what was a rather heterogeneous neighbourhood. The intuitively self-explanatory organization of the various units manages to create an air of cosy and calm "wellness”, closer to a hotel than to traditional technology-ridden medical treatment.

At a sensitive building plot very close to the church, cemetery and vicarage, the village centre forms, due to its independent architectural "language”, a new profane centre. The angular crystalline free-standing building, with its shape being determined by height, spacing regulations and mix of functions, contains variable and combinable open rooms at staggered levels – among others the tourist information office and a café.

At the east border of Serfaus is Villa Rasilla – The name stems from a Rhaeto-Romanic term for field name – a holiday home designed by Noldin & Noldin. The two ground floor levels with the wellness-sauna-area, the bedrooms and bathrooms, have been built as a masonry wall construction; the top floor has been added as a self-supporting wooden cube with a wide and protruding partially roofed terrace.

The double lane expansion of the Arlberg tunnel carried out in 1998 provided the chance to demolish the old railway station originally in the middle of the village and build a new one on the south side of the valley. The design, emerging from a Europe-wide contest, is a new interpretation of the "Railway Station”. The actual station building is not a solitary building away from the railway lines, but a part of the landscape designing process.

As part of the 2001 Alpine Skiing World Championships, Dietrich Untertrifaller completed the wellness and leisure centre, which during the championships served as a medical centre. The majority of its volume is embedded in the slope, the flat greened roof blends in with the surrounding area. From the slope one only sees three small "barn-like” structures and the 2000m2 large hall’s skylights at a right angle to the slope.

In the centre of St. Christoph, the ÖSV (Austrian Skiing Association) built a sports hall (for the 2001 World Skiing Championships) with a fitness centre, a bar and offices for the association’s staff. A low budget solution based on minimalism was realised within a short time. The "self-confident” building is situated close to the ensemble around the "Hospiz”, which dates as far back as the Middle Ages.

The "Jochdohle” is Austria’s highest altitude mountain restaurant (3150 metres). Sitting on a small rock ledge and secured to the rock face is a three storey steel tower, which serves as a structural and functional "backbone”. Steel girders are fixed to the tower in a radial manner. During the summer the round silver shimmering building hovers above the glacier; in winter it sinks into the fresh snow.

A large supermarket with sufficient parking space had to be situated on a relatively cramped lot in the middle of the urban fabric. Wolfgang Pöschl and Josef Bleser reacted to the difficult requirements by letting the slightly slanting sales area float above the parking level recessed halfway into the terrain and to bring the mountains as well as the riverbank landscape closer to the customer by means of subtly placed openings. Integrated in the market is a café, which has taken over an important communicative and social function as a type of neighborhood center.

A new type of supermarket was developed for two promoters, Jenbacher Werke (canteen) and MPREIS (supermarket): With the historic fish market in Venice as an example, a new type of roofed market under a large elevated building, in which the canteen for 300 persons, a casino, a kitchen, a works doctor and a large south terrace for the Jenbacher Werke are accommodated.

A first impulse for the development of the inner city was the relocation of the university from the outskirts of town to the centre of Kufstein. Henke and Schreieck designed the "Möbel im Park” (furniture in the park), a cubic building with a glass outer surface structured with wooden slats. The energetic and innovative double layer façade with integrated room ventilation is a feast for the eyes of the studying (future) "Facility Managers”.

Situated on the grounds of a former industrial area close to the town centre is Johann Obermoser’s "trade park” with a number of, in structure and façade, differing buildings: A long stretched out building parallel to the trunk road with an MPREIS supermarket on the ground floor and offices on the protruding top floor. In addition to these, a square pavilion to the south with the "Vital Centre” and, at the end, very close to the slope the five storey high "Lantech” innovation centre.

This new quarter is the westernmost part of the city, closing off the residential area towards a zone reserved for agricultural use. With over 300 apartments, at the time it was built it was Austria’s largest low-energy housing project. The master plan was designed by the Vorarlberg architects Carlo Baumschlager and Dietmar Eberle; it consists of six very compact single buildings staggered, as it were, on a chessboard, creating a multitude of views and perspectives into the surrounding landscape that defy the high density.

To the adjacent building south of this one, Lackner (1995-96) added a "crown”, the Brenner archive, thus substantially redefining both its shape and identity.

In order to only minimally disturb services at the pre-existing university cafeteria and to make optimal use of the available building area, Lackner sort of built a bridge over the cafeteria. Glazed steel frames in brilliant orange stretch over the old building that was also given a brush-up in the process. Receding terraces contain seminar rooms and the library of the school of translators, transforming the old cafeteria building into a "city balcony” next to the river.

For the Dinkhauser packaging materials corporation, Lackner realized one of his last works. The lot sort of had grown with the enterprise, reorganizing it was an essential part of the task. So he added a new high-shelve storage area with unsupported steel frames stretching over 25 m to an existing shop. Large prefabricated concrete elements and triangular glass panels are the dominant elements that masterfully catch the attention of passers-by.

Due to the relocation of the railway lines, the family running the hotel had to close it down and relocate by opening a new hotel on the grounds of the old railway station. The hotel they built is a flexible useful house with rooms, which due to the sliding partitions, can be turned into completely functional apartments. The outside of the hotel is decorated with a wood-shingle-façade and large glazed areas; protruding alcoves in the rooms provide resting areas with a view across the mountains.

The finish line stadium constructed for the skiing world championships, were constructed by the same architectural-team that built the new St. Anton railway station. The tranquil wood-panel covered building is intertwined with the surrounding terrain in such a way, that the finish line stadium seems to be more of a topographic intervention than a building. With its many seminar rooms and fixed stand for 2000 persons, the finish line stadium is the perfect place for various outdoor events.

The structure of the Horberg lift mountain station at an altitude of 1700 metres dates back to the 1960s. Originally, it was intended that only the lift hall’s restaurant area on the ground floor was to be extended. However, the architects developed a new and extensive concept improving both the functional procedures and the architectural qualities. A characteristic element is the glazed roof at the front end of the building and the hall, which as a spatial gesture has been extended by two bays.

The Goldried lift valley station situated on the outskirts of Matrei i. O. provides various service facilities, the Tauern Stadium built shortly later by Gerhard Mitterberger provides a centre. The main idea during planning was to creatively integrate the infrastructure for tourism, including the large parking spaces, into the alpine surroundings. The service building for skiing schools and ski-hire and, the cable car stations themselves, were all built of simple industrial materials and designed to fit the requirements of mass tourism.

The revitalization of the village center began in the small community of Kals am Großglockner with the Glocknerhaus, which houses the Hohe Tauern National Park administration, the Kals Tourism Association and a branch bank. A plain structure that follows the course of the road was erected; its scale and color scheme refer to the late Gothic rectory and the parish church and thereby creates a harmonious ensemble of old and new.

Dominique Perrault set up his first MPREIS opposite Swarovski Kristallwelten, which was designed by André Heller – a solitary building based on minimalism with an opaque shimmering glass façade. A biomorphic scaffolding surrounding nine pines permeates the rectangular building allowing the border between the inside and outside to merge where visible truss-girders, OSB boards and black floor slabs create a market hall atmosphere.

For the Amsterdam UN Studio (Ben van Berkel and Caroline Boss), this was the first international competition they won. The sculpturally carved building boasts an outer skin of black basalt, rising out of an environment of blackened concrete. The interior is, of course, not open to the public, it hosts the transformers and the control centre that are part of the essential infrastructure of the city.