architek[tour] tirol – guide to architecture in tyrol

Since the 1960’s, the Taxis palace, built around 1690 by J. M. Gumpp the Elder, hosts the Region’s contemporary art gallery. To create additional space for exhibitions, a new hall was carved into the courtyard of the baroque palace that now – not unlike in a pond – is mirrored in the glass roof of the new underground hall. That kind of interaction between the historical ensemble and contemporary intervention is characteristic of the entire project, so art exhibitions have found an architecturally fascinating location.

The formerly commercial cinema, designed by Hubert Prachensky in the 1950’s, was cautiously adapted to house an art film society. The new steeply rising auditorium guarantees good view from every seat and, at the same time, makes room for a second, smaller auditorium situated crossways under the bigger one. The lounge bar serves as a meeting point not only for movie addicts.

The Tyrol Savings and Loan headquarters in Innsbruck takes up several buildings on Erlerstraße and Sparkassenplatz. In 1994, the restructuring of the customer area, with a new entrance from the square rather than from Erlerstraße, marked the beginning of a complete re-launch of the bank’s headquarters and the square. Generally, what once had been a traditional – and somewhat stuffy - bank hall, emanating solidity and security, now is becoming an ultra-modern high-tech service zone; Wiesflecker’s customer area here was one of the first, establishing "banking by dialogue” as a ground rule, and spreading "service isles” throughout the customer area.

The new Social Sciences and Economics building is a most important urban joint between the Old Town and the historical park of the Imperial Garden, widely commended not only as a great work of architecture, but as an achievement in urban development. Formerly, the massive military barracks had virtually occupied all the available space, tightly closing itself off from the street, now there is a vital public space, a truly "open university” in the heart of the city centre.

Kufstein Fortress, situated above the town, is one of Tyrol’s most impressive middle-age buildings. Extension work has been carried out on the fortress a number of times over the past few hundred years, among other things, the Josefsburg built by Gumpp, the Architect to the Imperial Court. In view of more intensive use for events, the castle was restored and adapted within the scope of a large cleaning up project. The historic structural fabric was secured and the necessary new infrastructure carefully altered.

On a slope east of the village of Absam, adjacent to a school building from the sixties, the new regional professional school for construction and painting bridges the gap between the old school and the distinctive edge of the hill. The building’s organization follows a strictly horizontal logic. Unplastered concrete bricks with integrated insulation for the walls and rough concrete for the load-carrying structure make sure the future construction workers get an idea of what their job is all about, creating a "hands-on” atmosphere very apt for this particular school environment.

The very compact albeit, at the same time, very pervious ensemble close to the Old Town is home to a 10 class middle school, the Hall gymnastics association and the ice sports centre, thus having to combine various functions. In order to preserve as much as possible of the existing green spaces, the southern part of the lot only got an underground building, while all "daylight” functions are concentrated in a single transparent building that takes in, as it were, as much as possible of the surrounding landscape.

Starting at the Seegrube is a short chair lift up the west slope to the Frau-Hitt-Warte. Both lift stations are reduced to a functional and technical minimum, are by no means spectacular, but are still individual architectural designs. The steel-wood constructions were prefabricated and lifted to their locations by helicopter; here they were connected to their previously constructed foundations.

On the Tyrolean side, the Steinplatten lift provides access to the Steinplatte Waidring skiing area situated on the high plateau at the Tyrol-Salzburg-Bavaria triangle. A characteristic element of the valley station planned by Peter Thurner, is the wave shaped roof under which various rooms and areas of activity can be found. Long and sweeping, it is suspended above the massive base areas forming a large covered open space area.

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.

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.

The hall with dominant 9 m high breccie columns, dating back to about the middle of the 19th century, is one of rather few still existing remnants of a once flourishing salt industry in Hall. Very subtle interventions sufficed to change it into a fine arts hall, with a smaller north wing added. Together with another saltworks building which was turned into a "media tower” by Schlögl & Süß, the revitalized monument of industrial archeology suggests a new town gate.

On Dorfstraße between the walls of the Stams Monastery and the old rampart gate, the former "Spitz Garden” became the construction site for the Fire Brigade and Club House. Located on the ground floor, executed in exposed concrete, are the garages and ancillary rooms of the Fire Brigade. The upper floor, enveloped with a wood façade, holds the music rehearsal room and the library. By placing the building completely on the street, a square that opens towards the village center could be created for celebrations.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The technical challenge of building one station for two cable lifts was solved by the winner of the Fisser mountain lift contest – two buildings placed to form an angle and affixed by a single sheet steel roof. Due to the drop in the level of the ground, it was possible to keep the volume of the double station quite low, hence, integrating it with the overall appearance of the community of Fiss.

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.

The architectural originality of the Rifflseebahn valley station is typical for Josef Lackner’s (1931 – 2001) work, which he always kept at a distance from fashions and trends. In this case, with the in form and content he played with the theme of regional building, which he took and transformed into new relationships – for example, he took autonomous buildings developed in room and functional programmes and covered them with "old fashioned” wood shingle.

Across the street from the "South Tyrolean Settlement” of the ‘40s, Lackner built his version of low-income housing. The rather flat and long-stretched volume is accentuated by wave-like rising structures above the four entrance areas; the apartments here are shifted upwards by a half storey. The rhythm of the spacious oriels that are a characteristic element of these buildings is determined by the different types and sizes of the apartments.

On the edge of the Old Town, an empty lot left over from the war was filled with a sharply cut austere cube which ostensibly did not even try to fake stylistic allusions to fit in with the surroundings, although the volume, the materials and some details do interact nicely with the historic environment. The front conspicuously completes the "city wall” surrounding the Old Town, an interior courtyard leaves enough free space so as not to interfere with a neighbouring neo-baroque palace, and an old house at the back was refurbished and integrated with the new office space.