architek[tour] tirol – guide to architecture in tyrol

The "Altes Kino” ("Old Cinema”) in Landeck, built by Hans Illmer in 1927, has been a cultural center for many years. After the adjacent club house was torn down, a town square that is surrounded on three sides by a brace made of white exposed concrete and glazed on one side arose in its place. Offices are situated at the front side of the new building; the two-story component attached to the cinema is used as a cultural café. The listed cinema was renovated, the attic above the cinema laid open and adapted for public utilization.

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 heritage-listed primary school in the centre of Landeck was renovated, adapted for contemporary learning methods and extended with an annexe. On the ground floor is a hall glazed on three sides, which makes the new building look like a floating volume in the park; below it lies a gym, and on the roof is a spacious breaktime patio framed with wooden slats.

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.

As a connection between the office area on the left bank of the Inn and the business centre in the Angedair district, Thomas Schnizer designed a footbridge with a horizontal structure that has a resolving effect on the urban area. With its well thought out details and the well planned access ramps, the bridge combines the town design with constructive sensibility.

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.

Together with the construction of the Arlberg tunnel, the construction of the steel-lattice railway bridge across the Trisanna (1882–83) was the greatest technical achievement during the complete construction of the Arlberg railway. Two huge stone piers to which the stone viaduct-arches on both sides are connected support the steel lattice construction, which at the time was Europe’s second largest bridge. The bridge was reinforced in 1923 and replaced by a steel construction in 1964.

Featuring a grocery market and a Baguette Bistro, the first MPREIS shop in the Paznaun Valley was built in See. The rear of the two-story structure is dug into the slope; the building opens to a large glass front towards the street. The rough-sawn timber lattices placed in front of the glass not only filter the light, but should simultaneously symbolize the building's steadfastness in the face of the threatening danger from the avalanche line lying opposite.

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 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.

A new community centre cum village square between to churches and adjacent slope, have been developed in the middle of Kappl in place of both the former lower secondary school and the old local authority. The design and height development of the three "U” shaped buildings around the square take the church and the small village structures into consideration.

A place designed exclusively for the locals and their extremely active club life – the St. Nikolaus Community Cultural Center – emerged in the "tourist metropolis” of Ischgl. The defining element is an accessible roof landscape under which large parts of the cubature – such as the band rehearsal room edged into the slope as a wooden box – disappear. Together with a "parlor” available to all the clubs, the new music pavilion and a ramp with seating steps, a new village square has opened up.

The MPREIS grocery store with bistro in the tourist municipality of Ischgl toys with the clichés of traditional and alpine building. The striking design element of the façade is a dark green artificial lawn; inside, the wooden coffered ceiling, the laying pattern of the wooden floor and the furniture of the bistro cite classic elements of a farmhouse parlour.

Right in the middle of the tourism metropolis Ischgl, with its hotels and Après-Ski-Setting in between folklore and "Ballermann” (name given to a location for partying and having general fun) is the "Adler”, a building that for many doesn’t seem to suit the location. The architect – who runs the place himself – constructed a slim white building "encased” in terraces, a glass core and light coloured wooden balustrades, which offers its guests bright, simple and variable apartments.

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.

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.

Johann Obermoser designed an – for Tyrol – early example of the further development of a building project to provide accommodation for older citizens and those in need of nursing. The outside of the building is dominated by the glass façade, which brightens the inside allowing the residents to casually take part in "outside” life. Towards the yard the L-shaped building presents itself in a warm wood.

The "Stuemergründe” village center, designed by Rainer Köberl and Daniela Kröss, emerged as the winning project of a novel competition procedure with the intensive involvement of the residents of Fließ. Their project breaks up the complex spatial allocation plan—from the village hall, to a doctor’s office and commercial space, right up to apartments—into three different structures. Developed in reference to the small-scaled village structure, the buildings are arranged on the building lot in such a manner that attractive square sequences and vistas were created.

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.

From the original notion of building a tree house with pupils, a whole open air classroom — a simple wooden structure docked with a footbridge and a terrace onto the slope above the school — evolved in a complex process. From the project idea, to the design, up to the 1: 1 implementation, the project was accompanied in numerous subject areas, enabling a specific topic to be covered in an interdisciplinary manner.

The municipality of Fliess has been trying for several years to counteract the threat of migration. After a multifunctional village centre, the sports and leisure facility is another building block to encourage young people to stay in the village. Based on the topography, the architects placed several horizontally layered levels on, over and against the edge of the hillside: including a clubhouse, a sauna structure by the outdoor pool and a cantilevered deck along the main football field.

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.

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.

Since 1984/85, an underground air cushion funicular has been connecting the eastern end of the village of Serfaus with the cable cars in the west. In the course of renewing the technical installations, the four stations were adapted to today's requirements and designed as non-barrier meeting places, each with its own character. The two stations "Kirche" and "Zentrum" in the centre of the village were completely rebuilt.

At the time of its completion, the Hotel Maximilian indoor swimming pool was one of the rarest examples of alpine tourism architecture away from the usual clichés. The architects set a radical statement by means of a "controlled collision” with the existing building; a "glass tent” with a sophisticated tensioned roof construction, understood as being an artificial form for an artificial location. Its name, an old dialect term for disorder, was given to the swimming pool by the villagers.

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 town hall in Nauders emerged - like many others - from a competition supported by the Tyrolean Village Renewal. A compact exposed concrete structure with a light gable roof gives the community an appropriate presence through its form and height development. Between the new building and the former town hall from the 1950s, which has now been repurposed, an attractive village square has been created.

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.