Austrian Architecture

Vienna-based Studio Jadric Architektur and their Korean Partner 1990uao were chosen as the winners of the Seoul Photographic Art Museum international competition. The proposal will be part of the future cultural mile in Chang-dong.

On September 8, 2019, Austrian’s largest public art installation to date opened to the public. Titled FOR FOREST – The Unending Attraction of Nature, the artwork transforms the Wörthersee Football Stadium in Klagenfurt into a native central European forest. Conceived by Swiss curator Klaus Littmann and inspired by a dystopian drawing by Austrian artist and architect Max Peintner, the installation advocates for pressing contemporary issues such as climate change and deforestation. Through the structural containment of this massive forest, it suggests that nature may someday only be found in specially designated spaces, as animals are today in zoos. Landscape architecture was supervised by Enea Landscape Architecture.

Opening on July 5th, “Architecture Speaks: The Language of MVRDV” will provide an immersive, diverse, multimedia experience for visitors to the Tyrolean Architecture Center (aut) in Innsbruck, Austria. The exhibition centers around a spatial intervention of 4 towers constructed inside the aut’s Adambräu Building, a former brewhouse. Each tower embodies a word that represents key concepts in MVRDV’s designs: stack, pixel, village, and activator. “Architecture Speaks” aims to present the concepts in an approachable, engaging manner, with the colorful towers enhanced by images, text, models, drawings, videos, audio, and interactive elements to present MVRDV’s projects.

HENN has released details of their proposed CAMPUS ’25 in Linz, Austria. Designed for the Raiffeisenlandesbank Oberösterreich banking institution, the scheme is defined by principles of openness, flexibility, and multi-functionality, with a range of services open to the wider public. The central cornerstone of a new campus, the new building will contain co-working zones, shops, restaurants, and exhibition spaces.

For ten consecutive years, Vienna ranks first in the Mercer survey on cities with the best quality of life in the world. In this edition to the global ranking, eight Western European cities join the top ten, even when "trade tensions and populist undercurrents continue to dominate the global economic climate", as Mercer points out in its report.

Architecture and design practices Penda and Smartvoll have created a giant watermill for Austria's National Pavilion for EXPO 2020 in Dubai. ‘The Source of Everything’ was selected as a finalist in an international competition and marks the first collaboration between Penda Austria and Smartvoll. The project features a supersized mill that circulates water through the pavilion and brings an experience to the desert of Dubai that Austria is famous for: Refreshment.

The Viennese architecture office Querkraft has been selected to design the Austrian Pavilion for the EXPO 2020 in Dubai. The design combines traditional building materials with modern techniques to present Austria as a center of innovation. Former Federal Minister Beatrix Karl was appointed honorary commissioner for the world expo and will represent Austria externally. The Expo in Dubai will be the first world exhibition in an Arab country in the 170-­year Expo history. The Austrian Pavilion will center on questions of how resources can be used more thoughtfully and respectfully in the future.

As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage, we present the completed Austrian Pavilion. To read the initial proposal, refer to our previously published post, "Austrian Pavilion at 2018 Venice Biennale to Focus on the Importance of "Free Space" in Urban Spaces."

3XN and GERNER GERNER PLUS have released details of their competition entry for the design of a new aquarium in Schönbrunn Zoo, Vienna. Developed in collaboration with aquarium specialists ATT, “Poseidon’s Realm” was designed to be “elegant, simple and mysterious, lying across the landscape like a great veil.” The scheme was awarded second place in an international competition for the aquarium’s design, with the winner yet to be announced.

In his latest photo series, "Viennametry," Hungarian photographer and printmaker Zsolt Hlinka captures the unexplored voids in Vienna’s patchwork of historical and contemporary architecture. After previously studying the symmetrical corner buildings of grandiose Budapest, Hlinka has moved north to Austria on his quest to find geometry and symmetry within the urban landscape.