architek[tour] tirol – guide to architecture in tyrol

In the rural village center of Erl, the church, cemetery and parish garden form a clearly enclosed unit marked off from the surrounding development. As a secular antipode to the church, a new parish rectory was placed in the garden. Its location and polygonal ground plan layout were derived from the existing structure. Analogous to the roof of the church, the structure was enveloped with a copper façade, which will take on a characteristic blue-green patina over the years.

Conceived in its form and materiality as a conscious contrast, a new building of the Tyrolean Festival Erl was erected next to the Passionsspielhaus (Passion Festival House) built by Robert Schuller. Clearly offset from the white circular structure, the architects placed a dark building whose sharp-edged geometry was developed from the surrounding topography. Fluid spatial sequences with varying visual relationships to the outdoor space lead the visitor up to the concert hall situated in the center of the building.

The Festspielhaus – place of performance for the passion plays performed by approx. 500 actors and actresses and at the same time the main place of performance for the Tyrolean festival Erl – was built in the 1950s by Robert Schuller and in the meantime, due to its distinctive shape, has become a symbol of Erl. The white building at the foot of the Niederndorfer Mountains uses the hillside location for the ascending auditorium and emerge towards the valley side as gestural form of the stage house.