Zechner & Zechner Create a Mixed-Use Complex Beside Peter Behrens' Modernist Icon

Written by Evan Pavka

Viennese firm Zechner & Zechner has been announced as the winners of the competition for the new landmark complex NeuBau3—a mixed-use district at Peter-Behrens-Platz in Linz, Austria—after a unanimous decision by the jury. The proposed structure will complete the existing site of German architect and designer Peter Behrens' modernist Tabakfabrik Linz, a tobacco factory built between 1929 and 1935.

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While Behrens is noted for mentoring modernist icons from Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe to Walter Gropius in the early 1900s, his highly original industrial facility and tobacco factory designed with Alexander Popp is equally significant. Built in a style touted as New Objectivity, Behrens' Tabakfabrik Linz is considered the first steel frame building in Austria and a “radical functionalist masterpiece.”

Due to the site’s role in the city’s fabric as well as architectural importance, the competition brief asked for the development of a prominent street front, pedestrian routes, active courtyard, respective addition to the city’s skyline, and a sensitive relationship with the western portion of Peter-Behren-Platz to establish a city district encapsulating creativity, education, employment, and social development.

Zechner & Zechner’s winning proposal features a flexible mixed-use, live-work-learn podium of approximately 200 student apartments, residences, studios, and office spaces stacked atop ground-level retail with a school and kindergarten accessible from the central courtyard. An 81 meter-tall tower at the corner of Gruberstraße and Untere Donaulände will house a 140 room hotel with office space above in addition to a restaurant and skybar allowing for views over the Tabakfabrik site as well as the city of Linz. Beneath the car-free pedestrian zone, the architects have integrated two floors of approximately 600 parking spaces while providing connection to the future subway station.

The design is anchored by a porous courtyard that allows traffic from streets like Gruberstraße to flow naturally into Peter-Behrens-Platz. The shared bases of the individual structures and integrated openings enable the site to “radiate out,” according to the architects. Connected by steps and ramps, the courtyard is intended to function as an event space as well as a new public area that binds the new district together.

Ultimately, the proposal is intended to connect Behrens' iconic structure with the new development through a “coherent ensemble” of massing in relation to the existing site while bringing a renewed vitality to the area.