architek[tour] tirol – guide to architecture in tyrol

In the course of the expansion and functional adaptation of the Schwaz District Commission, a former passage courtyard was transformed into an attractive urban space. The upper level of the square was expanded, and the difference in level to the lower level has been overcome by a spacious open staircase with steps for seating. The partial, pavilion-like roofing of the stairs and the front area offers protection and forms the spatial framework for this new meeting place.

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.

On the outskirts of Weer; the new MPREIS food market with a café has created a place featuring a high quality of stay. The monolithic building opens onto the street with a transparent main façade and a terrace situated in front of the structure; the remaining façades are clad with polished stainless steel panels that reflect the surrounding fields. Artificial tree supports made of reinforced concrete and specifically set vistas shape the interior atmosphere.

A new community center with a multipurpose hall, a small inn and village square, which contributes to the revitalization of the village center as a social and communal meeting place, emerged in the rural community of Steinberg am Rofan. Bernardo Bader, who won the competition tendered on the basis of a public participation process, designed a compact saddle roof house in larch wood, which reacts empathetically to the village’s spatial situation.

In the place of a building destroyed by a fire, a central village square, which had been missing up to then, could be realized between the church, village hall and private buildings. What emerged is a calmly designed open space with a high amenity value that can be used for most diverse activities in the village. Additionally situated in a renovated house on the square is a small grocery store which, as a local supplier, significantly contributes to the vitalization of the village center.

With the Granatkapelle (Garnate Chapel), Swiss star architect Mario Botta executed his first structure in Austria in Penkenjoch im Zillertal. As a firm counterpoint to nature, he placed an oversized crystal in the shape of a rhombic dodecahedron on a ledge east of the reservoir. Clad with corten steel plates on the outside and laid with slender larch wood slats on the inside and lit solely through an opening in the roof, the sculptural structure stands out on account of its clear and precise geometry.

Standing on a slope side in the middle of the Hochzillertal skiing area, the "Kristallhütte” ("Crystal Hut”) is more of a hotel than a pure ski hut. In order to create further accommodation options besides the existing rooms in the stock building, a three-story annex with maisonette apartments was erected. Utilizing the sloping site, the annex is largely edged into the terrain; only the elevated, fully mirrored wellness area completely emerges above ground.

The meanwhile functionless pastor’s rectory provided the spaces needed in the Aschau parish for various groups, the administration and celebrations. This rectory, which is attached to the church and listed, was gutted and adapted for the new uses. Ancillary rooms and a small apartment are located in a narrow annex, which adopt the existing building lines in the sense of further construction.

Hotel Neuwirth – a heterogeneous conglomerate of building components from the most diverse dates of origin – was converted in the course of a reorientation into a nature and active-holiday hotel. The existing roof framework of the western part of the building was completely taken down, all of the balconies were removed, and a new roof structure for seven two-story apartments was erected. The rooms located below were renovated and complemented with a continuous balcony zone; the entire stock façade was thermally renovated and encased with a shingle façade.

In the rural context of the widely spread out community of Weerberg, an MPREIS supermarket was erected on a green meadow as a low budget project. The supermarket with a café consists of a plain structure with folded out corners that owe their effect to the raw charm of the materials used: industrial composite lumber for the roof, a steel construction braced with reinforced concrete slabs and a translucent polycarbonate that changes from smooth to gleaming, depending on the weather and light conditions, and lets the structure appear to be diversely pervious.

The redevelopment of the village square, lying in close vicinity to the church, led to the creation of a closed, variously usable spatial situation instead of the formerly unstructured public space. The music pavilion, including a bar and toilets, was housed in an elongated, angled structure which, as the "backbone,” offers the square the necessary protection against wind and noise.

The supermarket in Wiesing is a further example of how MPREIS provides the residents of the surrounding villages with a communicative meeting point. The supermarket resembling a long stretched out wedge in the landscape is situated directly next to a roundabout and is accessible from the town centre via a footpath. With its Café with terrace to the west, this supermarket is both a meeting point for the locals and a resting station for tourists.

At 2000 metres above sea level, the "Freiraum Ahorn” offers what the name (open space) promises: Open space in the sense of a comprehensive offer of space for the cable lift company staff, this being concealed on the ground floor under a concrete slab, and, open space in the sense of a place of peace and relaxation for guests, enabling them to enjoy a lounge-atmosphere and panorama view in a large guest room situated in a bridge-like building above.

In the course of the conversion and extension, the congress, administration and information center erected in the late-1970s was given a completely new appearance. The previously rather heavy and stolid seeming building was transformed into a bright, crystalline structure that places a clear accent between the traditional Tyrolean houses. The spatial offer was significantly expanded and newly organized, whereby the second largest event center in Tyrol now has four action levels at its disposal.

Tux-Lanersbach is a characteristic village shaped by tourism in which the "Lederhosen style” continues to dominate. The decidedly contemporarily designed event center clearly sets itself apart from this environment. Under a sculpturally formed "bonnet,” enveloped with fiber cement shingles, spaces for the tourism association and the mountain rescue squad, a café, rehearsal rooms, as well as the large event hall are located. Towards the street side the structure acquiesces scale-wise into the surroundings. The hall’s large volume is distinctly readable towards the valley floor.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 guest house in Lanersbach was built in 1910 as one of the region’s first places of accommodation. It had been necessary to modernise the small log cabin with the guest and private areas not being separate areas. The sensitive extension in the form of a cube matches the existing buildings concept and orients its materiality on the surrounding area’s farm houses.

For quite a while now, the Binder wood corporation has made architectural quality part of its corporate identity, small wonder, then, that Josef Lackner was asked – among others – to realize several buildings for the company. With the shingles wrapping the striking building, Lackner calls the viewers’ attention to the fact that wood is, after all, what the company is about. Wood is also the main material chosen for the interior, creating an unmistakable special flair.

This is a both structurally and spatially most intriguing variation on the theme of industrial buildings: Without any support, folding wood box elements stretch over two shops, each 44 m broad and over 100 m long. Through glass panels along the single elements, which somewhat resemble boats turned upside down, daylight flows in freely. The zigzag movement of the diagonal entrenchments adds rhythm to the façade.