architek[tour] tirol – guide to architecture in tyrol

The former granary in the commercial area of Hall was converted into a transshipment center for wood pellets for an energy company and expanded to include a space for company events. The basic idea of the design was to place a crown on the existing tower and thus transform the anonymous commercial structure into an architecturally striking building. The two-story addition was encased in a filigree precast concrete façade, the grid of which refers to the structures found in the existing building.

The Längenfeld Nature Park House is the operational center of the Ötztal Nature Park and includes, among other things, an exhibition about the natural diversity of the valley. Proceeding from the topographical conditions, Hanno Schlögl designed the house as an artificial rock, with its exposed concrete surfaces, imprinted by the horizontal formwork, taking up a role that mediates between rock and wood. Purposefully placed perforations, a transverse concrete slab and the inclined canopy emphasize the structure’s sculptural character.

On the occasion of their 20-year existence, the Swarovski Crystal Worlds doubled in size in 2015, adding a new cabinet of wonder, an extensive park and several structural components. The entrance area, conceived as a "white forest” with its wide-jutting concrete roof supported by birch tree trunks and the design of the store, derived from a river landscape, originate from s_o_s architekten. On one hand, Snøhetta erected the well-lit, organically formed pavilion for the Daniels Café & Restaurant; on the other hand, the play tower encased with crystalline glass panels and the adventure playground that lies in front of it.

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.

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 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.

The older house in the Abbey Garden (Stiftsgarten), built 1979-86, was a pioneer masterpiece of considerate and respectful high quality care for seniors: Very close to the town centre, resembling a small city quarter consisting of rows of buildings along a green lane. Later additions, then, were the Seidner garden house, embracing a green square open towards the south, and the atrium-type Magdalenen garden house. Together, they form an ensemble of three self-sufficient care centres, with their different typologies, materials and facades underlining the autonomy of every single building.