architek[tour] tirol – guide to architecture in tyrol

The pedestrian and bicycle bridge, a four-field steel composite structure running next to the four-lane "Olympia Bridge,” spans 250 meters over the railroad tracks of Innsbruck’s Main Railway Station and the Sill River. Blinding out the car traffic, the 300-meter-long parapet beam bends as a dynamically formed separator element from east to west. A large-scale exposed concrete beam breaks away from the terrain in the east and shows the stairs.

Directly next to the Olympia Bridge, the small bridge temporarily opens up a construction site for the Brenner Base Tunnel and, once the construction work has been completed, will relieve the Sill River bank of heavy traffic as a direct connection between the Südring and the St. Bartlmä commercial zone. The simple and elegant bridge is designed as an integral bridge, a concept in which the abutment and the span merge into a coherent whole.

On the 70,000 m2 area of the former Tivoli Stadium a new city district arose from 2005 onwards with over 400 apartments, shops, offices, a senior citizens’ home, a nursery school and a youth center, a hotel, as well as numerous green areas and open spaces. In order to maintain as diverse and lively a district as possible, an individual architecture competition for each building was tendered. The first stage of construction, executed by Bruno Schwamberger, lies in the southeast part of the grounds directly on the South Ring Road and consists of a perimeter block development with apartments that are capped off in the east with the "Office am Tivoli”.

On the southwest corner of the inner city expansion area "Am Tivoli”, Manzl Ritsch Sandner executed a residential building with shop zones on the ground floor area. In contrast to the other buildings, the perimeter block development concept predetermined in the urban development key project is circumferentially carried out here on the ground floor only and is resolved in a building angle and a "corner cube” on the upper stories. Located in the center is a raised plaza, facing the west, which is consciously designed in an urban fashion.

Executed by Architekturhalle Wulz-König, Component 4 is a reinterpretation of the perimeter block development arising from the natural slope of the construction site. The base of the building incised into the west of the slope is opened towards the northeast, corresponding to the incline. Lying above the base, the five to seven residential stories are distinctly raised from the streetscape. Broad recesses break through the perimeter block development in two places and afford lateral views to the south and west.

A senior citizens’ residential home is located at a central point of the inner city expansion area "Am Tivoli”. The residential floors are arranged around an inner courtyard and placed onto a recessed base story where the public facilities are housed. Despite the compactness and the required, compartmentalized structure, the clear architectural language of the cubic building conveys a generous sense of space.

Starting from the privileged location of the plot as a part of the large, green "Tivoli Lung”, Helmut Reitter carried out a permeable development according to the basic principle of "Pavilions in the Park”. The elongated structure of the "House of Children” and its counterpart, the compact cube of the "Youth Center”, offer the children and young adults spaces that create diverse visual bonds to each other, with the public park and the senior citizens’ home opposite of it.

Norbert Heltschl counts among the few architects in Tyrol who were able to keep up with the international development after the Second World War. Erected by him from 1957-61, the Tivoli Outdoor Swimming Pool remains an outstanding example of timeless leisure architecture. From the swimming pool to the stands to the distinctively sculptural diving tower, he consequently utilized smooth exposed concrete. In the sense of a total work of art consisting of architecture, painting and sculpture, water-themed sculptures are spread throughout the whole area and are still used to today as drinking fountains or climbing devices.

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.

A tiny restaurant in which – pursuant to the builder’s operational concept – all eight guests come together at one table was set up in a small shop formerly inhabited by a watchmaker. The building stock was freed of all fixtures and old layers of paint were exposed and integrated into the new design concept. The main element of the very reserved transformation is a white-lacquered steel sheet structure that extends from the street into the interior and becomes a cooking bar and bench for those waiting.

The listed indoor pool was erected in the interwar years according to the plans of the City Building Director Friedrich Konzert, who, among other things, also planned the municipal steam baths in Salurnerstraße. It is characterized, on the one hand, by the functional composition of the structures, which is clearly legible from the outside. On the other hand, many allusions to Secessionism can still be found in the details. The heart of the swimming pool is the two-story hall, which features large windows on three sides and an encircling gallery.

bilding received its own house, planned and built by students at the University of Innsbruck, in Innsbruck’s Rapoldipark. The pavilion-like workshop building not only provides children and young people with an optimal offer of space, but also enriches the park with its unique architecture. Terraces placed in front of the building and floor-to-ceiling glass fronts connect the contoured structure with the surroundings. Slanted floors and walls on the inside form a flowing continuum of spaces with different atmospheres.

The Sill Island is a place with a unique urban situation in Innsbruck, in the middle of a water and park landscape. A high-quality housing complex, which – according to the idea of stacked city villas – is to offer an alternative to the single-family house, was built where the factory of the Herrburger & Rhomberg Spinning Mill originally stood. Parallel to the Sill Canal, arranged in a row and spread over six structures, two- to three-story units are respectively piled on top of each other in such a way that the detached house character remains legible and a high degree of permeability is assured.

Erected in the late 1980s by ATP on the grounds of the former Rhomberg textile factory, "Sillpark” is Innsbruck’s largest inner city shopping center. The expansion, which resulted from a competition, supplements the postmodern stock with a four-story, monolithic annex and a newly designed plaza space facing the inner city. In the building’s interior, an inner space opened over two stories is traversed by a roof made of partially printed, partially satined glass that brings a rich variety of true light into the mall.

As the end result of an invited architecture competition, the multi-functional P2 building connects private and public interests as an urban hybrid. The pointed, almost 50-meter-high tower contains apartments, and the two-story base building provides space for the Innsbruck City Library, which features several reading zones and an event hall. In between, there is a public space designed as a reading deck, accessible via two flights of stairs, which invites visitors to linger without any pressure to consume.

The centerpiece of the multifunctional building complex planned by henke und schreieck Architekten for PEMA Holding is a 49-meter tower with a design hotel, restaurant and publically accessible scenic terrace. Attached to this tower, which characterizes the cityscape, is a five-story, slightly pitched structure that provides tenants with well-lit spaces by means of generous courtyards and atria.

The development of the former "Bürgerlichen Brauhaus” area consists of a bipartite outer edge construction on the Ing.-Etzel-Straße, an "education tower” to the west of this for the BFI (institute for further advanced vocational training) and behind each other, two "town blocks” with service zones for the insurance companies on the ground floor. In addition to this there are office spaces and flats on the upper floors. Despite the size of the project, various materials, differing facades and the design of the open space, all played a part in the creation of the heterogeneous urban accommodation.

The railway line of the Austrian Federal Railways runs approximately parallel to the Sill on the middle of a railroad viaduct built in the mid-19th century. Bars and clubs populate the mostly converted viaduct arches which make up the Innsbruck party mile "Bögen” ("Arches”). The - meanwhile changed - jazz bar "Bogen 13”, with which Reinhardt Honold and Wolfgang Pöschl ushered in "Deconstructivism” in Tyrol in 1985, long before this was propagated as a "style”, stood at the beginning of this development. In an apparent chaos of materials and forms, elements such as lattice beams, profiles, steel mesh and corrugated sheet panels that correspond to the location are inserted; everything is raw, visually stilted and playfully staged.

Over the years, a heterogeneous development emerged around a listed hall from the late 19th century on the Innsbruck Trade Fair grounds. Emanating from this old "Hall B”, the ARGE Cukrowicz Nachbaur and Bechter Zaffignani added a new, one-story exhibition hall and an overhanging structure set on top of it, marking the new main entrance to the Trade Fair grounds.

In the place of the no longer salvageable housing block built in the late 1930s according to the plans of Theodor Prachensky, Schenker Salvi Weber Architekten erected a reinterpretation of the perimeter block development. In contrast to the previously narrow block edge closed on three sides, the new building is broken open in the middle and divided into two mirror-like structures stepped towards the inner courtyard with a concave building line that tapers in the direction of the head-end buildings.

A large supermarket with sufficient parking space had to be situated on a relatively cramped lot in the middle of the urban fabric. Wolfgang Pöschl and Josef Bleser reacted to the difficult requirements by letting the slightly slanting sales area float above the parking level recessed halfway into the terrain and to bring the mountains as well as the riverbank landscape closer to the customer by means of subtly placed openings. Integrated in the market is a café, which has taken over an important communicative and social function as a type of neighborhood center.

A 92-unit residential complex from the 1950s was extensively renovated and extended by 32 apartments through a two-story addition. As a slim, clear, longitudinal structure, this is distinctly set apart from the existing building by a circumferential strip of windows on the street side. At the same time, the existing balconies were renewed and enlarged, and the apartments connected to the elevators in the courtyard area.

After several halls of a former printing shop had already been converted for sporting purposes, it made sense to situate the new climbing center at this location as well. A large bouldering facility was housed in the existing building, and a cube was built on Ing.-Etzel-Straße for the nearly 18-meter-high climbing hall. Together with three freely placed, sculptural climbing walls and the existing building, an exciting ensemble that includes well-usable open spaces evolved.

After the Olympic Games of 1964 and 1976, Innsbruck was the first-time venue of the Youth Olympic Winter Games in January 2012. A new Olympic Village, which has meanwhile been populated by Innsbruck’s inhabitants, was executed on the grounds of the former Eugene Barracks for this purpose. Around 450 apartments are distributed among the 13 six- to eight-story cubes. Three houses, together with a common forecourt, respectively make up a group that was arranged, in turn, around various, large courtyards.

In the past years, a new, populous residential quarter emerged between Reichenauerstraße and the Sill-Inn estuary. The "Eugenpark” with its distinctive tower forms the gateway to this new quarter and at the same time provides the necessary infrastructure and a new meeting place to the new residents with a supermarket that features a café. Three variously high buildings – the one-story supermarket, an L-shaped, flat-roofed structure with three residential stories and the eleven-story tower — creatively form a unit that consciously subverts the otherwise solitary character distinctive of high-rises.

On the grounds of the former Tyrolean Loden Factory, located at the northern edge of Innsbruck’s Reichenau district, the largest certified passive house construction in Europe at that time was completed in 2009. Resulting from a 2005 competition, the basic urban planning concept of Architekturwerkstatt din a4 consists of three building complexes that are again respectively composed of two L-shaped structures placed against each other and form large inner courtyards through their interleaving. One building with rental apartments for NEUE HEIMAT TIROL was executed by Architekturwerkstatt din a4, the other two by Architekturhalle Wulz-König, resp., teamk2 [architects].

As part of the residential development on the former Tyrolean Loden Factory premises, the Architekturhalle Wulz-König executed a building with 128 owner-occupied apartments. Following the basic urban planning concept, two L-shaped structures facing each other form an open perimeter block development and surround a square-shaped inner courtyard. This inner courtyard lies one meter higher than the surrounding area and is accessed over two ramps at the openings on the east and west side.

Part 3 of the Lodenareal passive house complex, consisting of three open perimeter block developments, was carried out by teamk2 [architects]. Like the other two buildings, two L-shaped structures form a spacious inner courtyard here. A total of 165 rental apartments are extended for the most part and feature open spaces in the south as well as the west, and household balconies in the north, resp., east. A second façade level with story-high sliding elements provides protection for the open spaces and contributes to the structuring of the large-volume building.

Arising from a competition, the housing development set new standards in social housing at the time of its construction. Despite the high density, Georg Driendl succeeded in creating a permeable housing development with high atmospheric quality on a narrow parcel on the banks of the Inn. A total of 120 apartments are placed in three six-story structures, whose visual appearance is characterized by rear-ventilated glass façades and the colorful glass skin of the balconies.

In the scope of an extensive flood protection project, the area where the Sill runs into the Inn was redesigned. A significant component is the new bicycle and pedestrian bridge named after Innsbruck's twin city, Tiflis (Tbilisi). Built without piers, the structure features a boat-shaped cross section, and its 42-meter span closes a gap in the path network along the river promenade.