architek[tour] tirol – guide to architecture in tyrol

The Porzehütte hut on the Carnic High Trail, located at an altitude of almost 2,000 meters, was renovated and extended in just seven weeks in 2020. With a minimal budget, a robust wooden structure with larch shingle cladding was created. The kitchen on the ground floor was reorganized, the dormitories on the upper floors were replaced by an innovative system of interlocking cross-laminated timber bunks, which offer significantly more privacy. The old dining room and veranda were kept.

Built in 1883 in exposed high alpine surroundings on Spitzkofel Mountain (Lienz Dolomites), the Linderhütte was largely destroyed by a storm in 2018. On the initiative of several architects from Lienz, the small hut was rebuilt with the help of donations, sponsorship and voluntary work. The shape, dimension and materiality of the historic old structure were not changed, and a self-supporting "inner chamber” made of solid wood elements was placed in the reconstructed solid building.

With the Path of Perspectives, Snøhetta has designed a circular trail on Innsbruck's Nordkette mountain range featuring ten architectural interventions made of Corten steel and larch wood, which direct the gaze and encourage visitors to pause and reflect. Elements such as a spectacular viewing platform protruding over the edge of the terrain, wooden platforms around the "Großer Stein” and an auditorium with steps blend into the alpine landscape, mark special places and serve as meeting points.

Around 1,000 new apartments are to be built in the coming years on the so-called Campagne Areal in the Reichenau district of Innsbruck. As part of the process-accompanying neighborhood development work, a temporary place of information, exchange and networking – designed, planned and partly built by students of the architecture faculty – was erected.

As an extension of the existing Nature Park House at the "Gacher Blick” – the interface between the Kaunertal, Pitztal and Inntal valleys – a nature and cultural panorama with an observation platform was realized. A newly laid out path, executed in plain concrete elements, leads to a bridge and the platform that projects far over the terrain, which steeply slopes 800 meters downward. Grating on the ground and on the side, as well as a glass front enhance the all-around experience of nature at this extremely exposed spot.

The "village” of Igls, at the foothills of the Patscherkofel, is one of the inhabitants’ favorite leisure areas, and shortly will be declared air health resort. Right in the center of the Kurpark there is the congress centre run (as well as its much bigger "cousin” in Innsbruck) by the Innsbruck Congress and Fair Corporation. With the concept of a garden pavilion in mind, the two architects, rather than landing a solid building smack in the middle of the park, merely designed a transparent energy-saving jacket under a rounded overlapping roof. Inside your will find whatever is necessary for smaller assemblies or seminars, plus a public café where you can also sit outside.

All emergency calls in the region are to – or should – arrive here, and the ILL Centre then coordinates the necessary efforts of the various bodies of assistance, firefighters, ambulance services and the like. The design of the centre strives to underline this highly important function. Four concrete panels, and a central staircase, balance a sweeping and hovering oblong structure, stretching over an impressive span, which gives the firefighters’ vehicles enough room below to move in and out of their garages and, at the same time, creates a "roofed-in” exterior space.

This part of the former Adambräu brewery, a landmark industrial building of classical modernism by Lois Welzenbacher, came under the federal law on the protection of monuments when the brewery closed down. Most respectful, nearly invisible interventions turned the functionalist structure into what might be described as a pulsating machine to convey architecture. On the lower floors,aut. architektur und tirol continually proposes exhibitions and lectures on contemporary architecture, the upper floors are occupied by the University Architecture Archive.

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.