architek[tour] tirol – guide to architecture in tyrol

Built in 1883 in exposed high alpine surroundings on Spitzkofel Mountain (Lienz Dolomites), the Linderhütte was largely destroyed by a storm in 2018. On the initiative of several architects from Lienz, the small hut was rebuilt with the help of donations, sponsorship and voluntary work. The shape, dimension and materiality of the historic old structure were not changed, and a self-supporting "inner chamber” made of solid wood elements was placed in the reconstructed solid building.

Dating back to the 13th century, the core of Heinfels Castle had fallen into disrepair over the past century. In 2007, the South Tyrolean company Loacker took over the ruin and, in cooperation with the Federal Monuments Office, the State of Tyrol and the newly founded museum association, developed a concept to make them usable for tourism and culture. In a balancing act between old and new, parts of the large castle complex were preserved and restored, while others were reconstructed and reinterpreted.

On a very cramped site directly on the Isel River, space was to be created for the expansion of four schools. The architects designed a narrow, floating structure directly above the river front, which connects the existing buildings and provides plenty of new space. Amply visible classrooms, structured by the steel framework, are arranged along an open corridor.

The Dolomitenbad was built in the 1970s by Manfred Machné as a simple, no-frills sports facility in the spirit of that era. Forty years later, his son Hans Peter Machné renovated and expanded the indoor and outdoor pool, resulting in the emergence of a coherent, new whole. The centerpiece of the extension is the sauna area with a curved wooden lamella ceiling, whose shape makes reference to the surrounding Dolomite Mountains.

In order to give space to the active club and cultural life, the community of Kals decided on constructing a new event center with a hall that seats over 300 people. Schneider and Lengauer realized an elongated building which follows the course of the road, is docked onto the old Ködnitzhof inn, and, with its steep saddle roof and the precisely placed openings, makes reference to the rectory.

A hotel complex, highly controversial on account of its dimensions, was erected in the middle of the forest at an elevation of 1,300 meters. At the center lies the multistory, elongated structure of the hotel with a widely visible tower. Grouped around it and built upon mushroom-like concrete bases are 42 chalets, whose various building types were developed out of the topography. In order to carry out the massive intervention into the high alpine landscape as sparingly as possible, great attention during the planning stage was focused on integrating the resort into the landscape and regional architectural traditions were tied in without making use of flat alpine clichés.

In the course of the cemetery expansion, a new funeral hall, whose exterior façade made of quarry stone masonry is based on the solid natural stone wall of the cemetery, was erected. The space in the interior, featuring wood paneling and simple benches, ties into the tradition of the farmhouse parlor. A narrow window and a circumferential glass strip placed under the roof bring natural light into the space and establish the relationship to the village, resp. the mountains.

With small building supplements – a roofed parking space and an additional room on the ground floor – the architect has created an organic connection between the existing residential house from the 1970s and its surrounding natural environment. The Carport, with its polygonal concrete roof and slanted steel-tube supports, defines a new entrance area and integrates the tree population. The polyhedron cellar illuminated from above though a chimney-like shaft opens an existing passage to the garden, thereby creating new connections to the outside.

Hotel Rauter, situated in the centre of Matrei, was redeveloped in a number of construction stages under the motto of a concentrated and creative "adjustment”. The wellness area with its indoor swimming pool, the rest room designed as a forest of wooden slats and the garden with its outdoor swimming pool, are dominated by the contrast between the white pools, the furniture and the larch wood.

Community facilities as well as numerous clubs were housed in the old "Community Forum” built in the 1960s (architecture: Hans Buchrainer). Both of these functions were separated when it was expanded by a town office. The "Community Forum” was renovated and correspondingly adapted to the needs of contemporary club life. Erected in a sensitive handling of the local scale, the "Town Office” was placed in front of the existing building so that a "market square” was created towards the street.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 "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.

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.

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.

In 1868 Johann Städl and Egid Pegger built the first hut between the Freiwandspitz and the Großglockner; however, severe subsidence made it necessary to rebuild. To compensate for the exposed position at 2800 metres, Albin Glaser designed a long stretched out curved building with a roof that is arched on the wind-side of the building; this reaches down to the ground. The other three facades of the largely self sufficient hut have been covered with wood shingle, the large window openings to the south allow a view right across to the Dolomites.

A nursery school, a sports center with a changing area, a sauna, a tennis hall with seating, the community forum as well as the fire brigade, building yard and trash collection point—this mix of leisure time offers and community services was realized in the mid-1990s by consolidating and expanding existing buildings in the center of town. The various usages are divided into clearly different structures and, together with the paths and surfaces, form a loose and yet locally defined network.