architek[tour] tirol – guide to architecture in tyrol

The prominent Gründerzeit building at the transition from Burggraben to Museumstraße underwent several alterations over the course of the 20th century. As part of an inner-city densification project, the two-part existing structure was to be raised by additional storeys. Structural considerations, however, required the gable end to be completely reconstructed. Henke Schreieck Architekten adopted the façade articulation of the 1960s to transform the heterogeneous building into a calm, coherent whole that continues the row of houses along Museumstraße and accentuates the corner facing Franziskanerplatz.

The new townhouse on Innrain replaces a Gründerzeit building that had become outdated. Designed by Rainer Köberl and constructed largely from prefabricated concrete elements, the seven-storey building contains two commercial units and 24 rental apartments. Facing the street, the building blends into the existing row of houses with a classically articulated façade; its defining features are the sculptural cornices, the reddish-brown colour and the generous entrance hall with its two round arches.

The guesthouse, the result of an EU-wide architectural competition, provides high-quality yet affordable accommodation for students and visiting researchers at the University of Innsbruck. A long, timber-hybrid building was constructed on the site along the heavily trafficked Südbahnstraße, following the alignment of the street and incorporating a diverse range of communal spaces at street level.

As part of the restructuring and densification of the Südtiroler Siedlung "Pradler Saggen”, Silvia Body offers a contemporary reinterpretation of the original concept. Despite a doubling of the residential density, the distinctive quality of life associated with the original development—characterized by generous green and recreational spaces—has been preserved. To achieve this, approximately 250 apartments were distributed across low-rise, meander-shaped linear buildings and strategically placed, tower-like point blocks.

The new headquarters of Tiroler Versicherung, built using a timber-hybrid construction method, is a flagship project for ecological and sustainable building. Situated at a strategically important urban corner, the building’s street-facing elevation aligns with the eaves of adjacent structures, while two offset volumes at the rear complete the overall composition. A central design feature is the greenery, which extends from the reconstructed garden through vertical facade plantings to landscaped terraces and rooftops.

Located next to the Zeughaus, the residential building was designed to provide an orderly response to the heterogeneous development around the historic courtyard and to clearly define the park along the Sill. As a result, three buildings of varying heights form a staggered arrangement, the striking façade design works to promote a contained environment and sense of neighbourhood. Efficiently organised apartments in different typologies and differentiated open spaces contribute to the quality of the residential building.

A new university building has been constructed on the Innrain campus on the site of the former "Old Chemistry” building. It now houses several previously scattered institutes and the main cafeteria. The architects developed a striking structure with a facade of red-pigmented precast concrete panels, consisting of a five-storey plinth with a central atrium, and a ten-storey tower rising toward Innrain.

In order to create a contemporary rehearsal venue for the Wilten Boys' Choir, the idea of building on top of the petrol station on the grounds of the monastery of Wilten was born. A largely closed structure overhangs the fuel station on the street side and appears self-confident with its continuous outer skin of natural copper sheeting. The rehearsal room upstairs is illuminated and ventilated via an atrium, and a small pub is integrated into the petrol station downstairs.

In the next few years, around 1,000 new apartments will be built on the Campagne site in the Reichenau district of Innsbruck. On the first of the four construction fields, Bogenfeld Architektur implemented a concept based on the main idea of an open-air living room. Between four buildings of different shapes, they create a sequence of alleys, squares and gardens that are intended to promote a lively coexistence.

With the P3, PEMA Holding is building its third tower in Innsbruck, directly opposite the Adambräu. The architects realised a slender building consisting of a four-storey base and a 10-storey structure, which forms a clear end to the station area. Hotel "Motel One" is located in the tower, and the "reiter design" showroom and office spaces are located in the base.

The building, which is located in the historically grown, densely built environment of the Höttinger Gasse, was the result of an invited architectural competition. Situated directly on the street, the red concrete building, which draws inspiration from the colour of the historic town, protects the courtyard behind it from view and noise, while the protruding commercial unit is reminiscent of the small shop which was demolished.

Due to the historical significance of the Inn Bridge, which was built in 1982 on the site of the first bridge of the same name, the city of Innsbruck decided to commission an architect to oversee the general refurbishment. With just a few design measures, it was possible to transform the traffic structure into an inviting public space. All unnecessary walls were removed and replaced by a spatially interwoven railing, the connection to the bridgeheads was redesigned and new lighting was installed.

In the context of urban densification, a high-rise residential building of up to 12 storeys was constructed opposite the municipal indoor swimming pool in Amras, comprising 44 apartments—20 of which are managed by the Innsbruck Social Services. Positioned in the northern section of the relatively compact site, the building volume responds to the varying surrounding building heights through setbacks and rotations, while preserving a generous open space towards the Sill River.

As part of the construction of the new S-Bahn stop, a two-sided open café-bar was created within two consecutive railway arches of Innsbruck’s "Bogenmeile”. The arch facing the street houses the main indoor area, while the southern arch was transformed into a covered loggia. The interior is characterized by the contrast between the existing structure and custom-built, matte-glazed furniture elements made of packaging-grade plywood.

Since 2010, people with disabilities have found a job in a restaurant run by Lebenshilfe Tirol in Innsbruck Landhaus 2. The starting point for the conversion was the wish for more flexible event options in the dining area and the creative implementation of the motto "eat colorfully.” The architects implemented these requirements with the help of curtain panels in two colors, which allow different room configurations quickly and easily and fulfill the desired color scheme.

The new school building in the densely built-up centre of Innsbruck provides a differentiated range of rooms despite the necessary compactness. The building is divided into three parts by trapezoidal incisions, which are connected on the side facing away from the street by balcony zones that provide the pupils with a kind of vertical schoolyard.

Like many other schools, the HTL Bau und Design (Technical High School for Structural and Civil Engineering and Design) is affected by an acute shortage of space. ao-architekten realized the desired extension as a compact, single-story addition to the main wing, which clearly stands out from the existing structure through a band of windows running around the entire story. In the building, which is characterized by an open spatial structure and supplied with northern light via sheds, a studio-like ambiance with a high quality of stay was created for the seven final-year classes.

In the course of the organisational transformation of the former "Pädak" into a university of teacher education, the existing building, which was constructed in the 1970s, was renovated and extended. ARSP Architekten added two more volumes to the existing ones and created clearly structured areas for the individual units of use.

In a 17 m2-large shop, Rainer Köberl set up a Nepalese take-away for Dil Ghamal – a building owner for whom the architect had already planned the "Sensei” and "Meer Sensei” sushi bars. The space is kept in the basic silver color. Its dark walnut, mirror and a Sanskrit proverb on the wall exude a touch of Nepal.

Several educational institutions belonging to the Sisters of Mercy school association are housed in a building complex dating back to the 1930s. In the course of the most recent renovation, conversion and expansion measures, this heterogeneous building stock situation was resolved. A façade made of translucent polycarbonate panels consolidates the various existing buildings; the interior was returned to its concrete structure and complemented with natural materials.

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.

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.

Built on a very small plot of land at the edge of a public green zone, the house gives people with chronic mental illnesses a temporary home. There are small apartments on the upper floors, while the attic and ground floor offer communal lounge and therapy areas. An outer skin made of colored exposed concrete elements surrounds the entire polygonal structure, reinforcing its monolithic character.

For many years now, the Innsbruck Tourist Information Center has been located in a former stable building directly adjacent to the city wall. In the course of the renovation and redesign, the interior was cleared of later fixtures, the historic vaulted ceiling exposed, the original floor level restored and a barrier-free access in the form of a concrete ramp placed in the Renaissance hall. In order to restore the character of a city wall, the large arched windows were closed flush with the façade with perforated ceramic tiles.

Innsbruck’s "House of Music” can be found at one the most central locations in the inner city, where the city concert halls and chamber theater housed in the previous building were combined with numerous institutions dedicated to music. The complex spatial program is accommodated in a compact structure with a multilayered façade made of ceramic cladding. Emerging as independent elements, the publicly accessible hall bodies clearly distinguish themselves from those areas used for research, teaching and administration.

The residential complex is an example of how high-quality, inner-city densification can arise in the inner courtyards, which are enclosed by a Gründerzeit block perimeter development. The 120 or so apartments are spread over two floors that open up to the sunken inner courtyard and a number of separate structures with green roofs and façades.

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.

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.

Instead of two existing buildings south and east of St. Paul’s Church, the NEW HEIMAT TIROL constructed a social pastoral center for the parish of St. Paul, as well as a residential building with approx. 70 rental apartments. Marte.Marte Architekten place the comprehensive space allocation program in three loosely arranged structures around the church, which, in their entirety, also act as the new neighborhood center for Innsbruck-Reichenau.

Directly connected to the existing "Grenobler Brücke” road bridge, the new tram bridge over the Inn is an integral part of the planned regional railway between Völs and Rum. The project by Hans Peter Gruber (architecture) and Thomas Sigl (structural engineering), which won an architectural competition, consists of a girder bridge in composite construction on which a foot and bike path is integrated below the tram line.

The hotel is an example of high-quality redensification right in the heart of Innsbruck. On the one hand, the façade of the existing building on Maria-Theresien-Straße was restored, the old building gutted inside and completely reorganized. On the other hand, a new structure that responds to the neighboring development as a narrow block with a concluding head building went up in the inner courtyard.

Built in the 15th and 16th centuries, the City Tower is one of Innsbruck’s oldest landmarks, and the viewing platform a popular place for locals and tourists. In the course of the renovation, a free-standing double helix with an open stairwell was realized. Not only does it direct the flow of visitors, but is itself an impressive spatial sculpture in the freed-up tower interior.

The University of Innsbruck’s childcare facility was designed, planned and built by students from the architecture faculty as part of a bachelor thesis. Clad with wooden slats reminiscent of a bird’s nest, the structure opens up towards the Inn River through floor-to-ceiling glass fronts. On the inside, floors and walls form a flowing continuum of spaces with different atmospheres and usage possibilities.

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.

A housing development with approximately 100 apartments was erected in the densely built-up residential area where a gas station once stood. It exemplarily shows how postwar modernism can be densified in urban structures without perpetuating its monotony and uniformity. Several elongated components of various heights were placed on the narrow plot, creating an exciting ensemble with a clear center.

At the transition from the historic "Anpruggen” district to the Mariahilf urban development area, a residential building with shops on the ground floor was erected for a private investor. The monolithic structure is an example of inner-city densification that fits into the heterogeneous surrounding space on the northern side of the Inn River and places a contemporary accent.

For a long time, a gap stood on Wiltener Platzl, a small square in the immediate vicinity of the listed Liebenegg Manor. This empty site was convincingly closed with an angular structure marked by two high points. Public and semi-public uses are located on the ground floor, while small, handicapped-accessible apartments for senior citizens can be found on the upper floors.

Erecting a residential building along the Südring near the Grassmayrkreuzung presents a difficult challenge. Raimund Rainer reacts to this starting situation with several structures of varying heights that run along the street. Closing the existing block perimeter development off on three sides, they function as a soundproof wall in the south. An additional, free-standing structure, which the majority of the apartment living rooms are oriented towards, was placed in the quiet inner courtyard.

A new entrance area with a restaurant was realized on the east bank of the Rossau Pond, which creates a point of attraction with its sun terrace that goes beyond its operation as a bathing facility. To achieve this, the site was re-terraced with two angled retaining walls. Spanned by projecting wooden roofs, the oblong restaurant structure and the lower-lying cash desk pavilion with their façades blend into the shore landscape.

In 2006, Lorenzateliers compiled an urban development study for a former industrial estate in Mühlau for the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) and suggested the conversion of monofunctional areas in the sense of a mixed-use city. In this context, a complex of 52 apartments spread over two south-facing, terraced rows of buildings was created on Kreuzgasse, offering a high quality of living with spacious loggias and terraces.

It took over 35 years until an inn reopened at the location of the former Umbrüggler Alm. After several failed attempts, the City of Innsbruck tendered an architectural competition in 2013, which Elmar Ludescher and Philip Lutz were able to win with their project. A sloped polyhedral roof covers the organically shaped structure and extends over the south-facing front terrace. Shingled on the outside and appointed with silver fir on the inside, the building is a contemporary interpretation of the "alpine pasture” theme.

At Franziskanerplatz in Innsbruck, the listed "Lechle House” was carefully restored, and its characteristic single-storey extension was reinterpreted as a restaurant terrace. Traces of the historic building, dating back to the 13th century, including parts of the city wall, were integrated into the new structure. The facade articulation of the main house was reconstructed based on historical photographs.

The combined children’s and cardiac care center (KHZ) – an elongated block that takes up the edges of the existing buildings – arose in two construction phases. The KHZ Ost (Nickl & Partner) was realized in 2008 in the form of a three-story addition and a six-story new building with a multi-layer façade made of folding lamellas. The connected KHZ West (Architekturhalle Wulz-König), with its formally similar but reworked building shell, was completed in 2015.

The new day care center for the growing district of Kranebitten was built on a part of the spacious forest playground. Since a flat, L-shaped structure, together with two terraced wings, encloses a large inner courtyard, the children are provided with the necessary free space directly "in the house” – an additional play area in the public realm was not needed.

A building from the 1960s, located between the mountain station of the Hungerburgbahn funicular railway and the valley station of the Nordkettenbahn cable railway, has been converted into a concept store with a café-bar and shop. All of the renovation measures aimed to restore the aesthetics of the 1960s and make them come alive in the interior.

In place of the dilapidated Mentlvilla, used by Caritas as an emergency shelter for people with substance abuse issues, Jörg Streli was able to construct an initial building block on the future edge of the city from the Main Railway Station to the Südring. Making a conscious reference to Lois Welzenbacher’s Adambräu, he designed a narrow, six-story tower that frees up the street space and the forecourt of the neighboring Carmelite Church.

A supermarket divided into several structures was converted and extended with a glass pavilion. The challenge consisted in molding the heterogeneous existing structure and the extension into a new entity, which was achieved primarily through continuous flooring featuring ornamental tiles. The tendril pattern partly turns up again on the walls and ceilings, lending the market its very unique atmosphere.

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.

The annex of a competition-compatible hall with a grandstand, which emerged from an architectural competition, makes the previously disoriented building appear new as the "missing head for the existing body.” This new construction, the defining design element of which is the supporting structure, consists of a glass base for the hall and a closed cube above it for the grandstand.

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.

In the course of renovation, both of the faculty buildings erected at the end of the 1960s in a very similar form by Hubert Prachensky and Ernst Heiß were differently designed according to their respective uses. The building for the construction engineers now shows itself as a tower with a clear and closed façade. By contrast, the architecture building received a skin made out of variously tilted glass wings that lend the structure vibrancy and lets the house appear open.

In 2014, the religious order of the Sisters of Mercy in Innsbruck decided to renovate and expand the facilities of the former girls’ boarding school to make accommodation available to people who fled their home countries. Under the premise of using the existing means as best as possible, the girls’ boarding school dating from the 1960s underwent a general refurbishment according to plans by STUDIO LOiS, who added an annex and a stairwell. The makeover ostensibly did not center on design issues, but much more on combining and reacting to cheaply available resources.

In 2016, the former "Hotel Mozart", which dates back to the 1950s, was transformed into a boutique hotel where each room has its own identity. On offer are garden appartments, minimally furnished business rooms, mini-rooms with intelligent spatial solutions that have been thought out down to the last detail, or lavishly furnished themed rooms. The adjacent pub garden with terrace was also designed with great attention to detail.

Erected directly behind the Triumphal Arch in the 1980s, the "Möbelhaus Greif” ("Greif Furniture House”) was converted after several user changes into a residential, office and shop building. The paramount goal of the conversion measures was to react with a conservatively designed structure at a prominent location in the middle of historical buildings. Among other things, the structured concrete-prefab façade was taken down and replaced by a considerably more toned-down façade design, which enables the texture of its thick mineral plaster surface to haptically emerge.

The Innsbruck location of the AZW Training Center is situated in one of the "Huter Houses”, a building complex erected at the beginning of the 1970s. In the course of the spatial expansion that became necessary, the stock was reorganized around an infrastructural core and enhanced by a second upper story. By relocating the main entrance, the previously unsatisfactory, backstreet-like entryway was significantly improved and a permeable and open communication zone was created.

A new building for an "inclusive” school was erected directly adjacent to the "Hauptschule Hötting”, a "classic” of Tyrolean Modernism. In reaction to the existent development and the attractive location near the Inn, Helmut Reitter developed a roundly oriented structure that takes up the building lines of the surroundings. In the interior, the attention was directed to the interstices; instead of corridors in the actual sense there is a varied succession of paths and "squares” with a large variety of open areas.

A two-story restaurant space created in the 1980s was adapted for a new tenant. Due to the limited financial possibilities, many elements of the interior design (gray tile floors, suspended plasterboard ceilings) had to be retained. The design approach developed out of this pragmatism painted all the surfaces gray and set vibrant colored accents with the furnishings.

The Tyrolean Chamber of Commerce acquired a town house on Wilhelm-Greil-Straße to expand the existing premises on Meinhardstraße, which was demolished and replaced by a new building. The new main entrance is located in the main house, which is enveloped by a laser-cut aluminum façade, while a two-story wing leads to the adapted structure. The centerpiece is the publicly accessible arcade, which, as an extension of Gilmstraße, offers a new pedestrian connection.

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 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.

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.

The project by ARTEC Architekten, which resulted from a competition, reacts to the extremely sensitive building lot on the Innpromenade by placing itself as gently as possible into the riverbank landscape through mounting pillars and cantilevers. A low service wing lies at the street; the main wing of the residential home is segmented into interleaved housing units arranged around an interior space that opens towards the top. The green space newly designed by Auböck & Kárász seamlessly continues under them.

By means of minimal adaptation, an empty shop was transformed into a bar that functions as a classic café-bar during the day and transforms into an exclusive nightclub in the evenings. The existing structure came alive again through targeted interventions; the applied colors, fabrics, surfaces and a sophisticated lighting concept serve to generate the desired flair.

MED-EL, the world leading producer of cochlear implant systems, has its headquarters in Innsbruck. The five-story annex building for research and development contains conference rooms, training and measuring labs, clean rooms and offices on more than 13,000 m2. The core theme for the architectonic implementation was, on the one hand, to create an appropriate space offer for the communication culture lived within the company and, on the other hand, to formally express the firm’s innovative technical direction.

Am Südrand von Innsbruck befindet sich das Betriebsgelände der Innsbrucker Verkehrsbetriebe mit der Hauptremise für Busse und Straßenbahnen. Das neue, im Osten weit über die Gleise auskragende Verwaltungsgebäude ist in enger Zusammenarbeit zwischen Bauherren und Architekt entstanden. Die vorgehängte Fassade aus unterschiedlich gelochten Cortenstahlplatten und die Werkstattatmosphäre im Innenraum tragen zu einer dezidiert industriellen Anmutung bei, mit der die Funktion der Verkehrsbetriebe zum Ausdruck gebracht werden soll.

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.

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.

Past the bookshop planned by Rainer Köberl on Innsbruck’s Sparkassenplatz is "liber wiederin”, a business premises located around the corner in Erlerstraße in which Thomas Wiederin proved to be a builder with a high standard of quality. The existing shop was adapted by the architects using selected materials and colors and employs natural and artificial light that allows the books to take center stage.

For the "2012 Days of Architecture” and commissioned by aut. architektur und tirol, the Tortenwerkstatt - a collective of architecture students - erected the stattSTUBE. For a whole summer long, people could meet here, sit together comfortably without the pressure of having to consume anything, chill in hammocks and thereby experience the specific qualities of a spot that had been neglected until then.

A new building emerged at the western end of the university campus for the autonomous Institutes for Chemistry/Pharmacy and Theoretical Medicine. Based on the highly complex requirements for research and teaching, on one hand, and the growing urban structure, on the other hand, the Architekturwerkstatt din a4 developed a compact structure with functional- and design-related courtyards, indentures and recesses.

The small residential complex arose on an undeveloped piece of land made available by the Diocese of Innsbruck in the middle of a predominantly small-scaled, villa-like area. Starting from an urban planning context, the architects returned the building site, so to speak, to its "original condition” as a continuous slope and placed three self-confident, free-standing structures, developed in the style of the villa-like tenement blocks, in a newly designed green space.

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.

Der Eduard-Wallnöfer-Platz, der lange ein "Hinterhofdasein" führte, wurde von LAAC Architekten/stiefel kramer zu einer begehbaren, urbanen Bodenplastik umgestaltet. Der Platz, seine Denkmäler und vorhandene Infrastruktureinrichtungen wurden in eine homogene Oberfläche aus hellem Beton eingebunden – eine Topographie aus sanften Hügeln, die neue Blickbeziehungen schafft und den InnsbruckerInnen eine vielfältig bespielbare Freifläche bietet.

In the west of Innsbruck a new building was constructed as a public private partnership, whereby a shopping centre and a school, facilities with completely different forms of use, have been accommodated. In a clearly defined building, which provides the surrounding urban area – including an industrial estate and heterogeneous structured residential developments – with a new identity, the two users each have their own, developed for their individual requirements, completely separate areas.

A new museum was constructed in Bergisel with the "Riesenrundgemälde” being its main attraction. The architects solved the complex task at the location of both historical and landscape importance, with a flat solitary and "reserved design” building situated on the edge of the slope leading to the Sillschlucht. However, when travelling towards the main traffic routes, the round painting takes on the appearance of a sculpture with it being presented in a hollow.

After the redesign of the south building on Sparkassenplatz and the completion of the Tyrol Department Store, the niche in the southwest corner of the square became an attractive, inner city interstice. The Italian espresso and wine bar set up in this plaza niche is operated by two architects, but was designed by colleagues who created the atmosphere appropriate to the gastronomic concept with the help of purposefully chosen interventions and materials.

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 a listed house going back to the Gothic period, Schlögl & Süß Architekten realized a new shop for the Swarovski Crystal Worlds. Changes were hardly made on the outside, but the inside was completely restructured and newly designed. Visitors are guided in a one-way system through a sequence of rooms staged by Swarovski in which the new interior architecture and the historic building fabric are contraposed.

In the Höttinger Au, at a heterogeneous location with a concentration of different functions which had developed coincidentally, Rainer Köberl designed an MPREIS food market. The determining element of the building is a roof projecting out to the street; all the individual function areas are arranged under it. With its café lying towards the street, the market has become a meeting point of the neighborhood.

The branch office of the BTV bank occupies a small lot at the beginning of Mitterweg, a street with a very heterogeneous development structure. In reaction to this rather dreary area, it was important for Rainer Köberl to create a friendly antithesis. The building is characterized by the distinctive shape of a truncated pyramid pulled upwards and in the tension between openness and closure, resp., lightness and heaviness of the designed façade.

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.

In the past years hardly any building scheme in Innsbruck sparked such heated discussions as the various projects for the new construction of the Kaufhaus Tirol (Tyrol Department Store). David Chipperfield was ultimately commissioned to not only design the "show front” on Maria-Theresien-Straße, but also the entire department store complex. In a respectful handling of the historical substance, he placed a decidedly restrained structure into the heterogeneous street ensemble, whose elongated façade is structured by a double bend and a recessed top floor.

The Wiltener Platzl, which had previously deteriorated into a pure traffic (rest) area, was transformed with few interventions into a lively and attractive neighborhood square. A uniform ground level and a continuous surface made of bright granite lets the square appear spacious. A bench with a drinking fountain, two trees and granite block seating possibilities structure the square space and invite people to linger without having to consume anything.

Similar to the Innsbruck main railway station, the architects were presented with the challenge of adapting a representative branch of the Tyrolean MPREIS chain to fit into a cellar without daylight. Here, such as at the railway station, a ceiling of mirrors removes the room’s boundaries thereby highlighting the goods. Untreated wooden floor, white "islands of distinctiveness” and heavy round pillars, which due to the mirrors appear as tall light-pillars in a mighty hall, all influence this new "flagship store” situated in the Kaufhaus TYROL.

With the objective of doing Innsbruck’s important boulevard justice in terms of design, a project, won by AllesWirdGut, was put up for tender in 2006. With a carpet-like design for the road surface made up of four different types of granite, furnishing made of brass and a differentiated lighting concept, the architects created a location full of atmosphere, which at the same time is a street and a square.

In place of the original town planned, unsatisfying and unused rest room running along the street, the new library building creates a flowing crossover from urban space to the university campus. The library is situated beneath the existing buildings and connected to the reorganised main library. The library’s roof provides much-used open space and serves as a new university town-side entrance.

The redevelopment and extra storey added to the office and business premises on the south side of the Sparkassenplatz form the completion of several years of redevelopment work carried out on the Tyrolean bank building enclosing this central Innsbrucker Square. With the objective of the reconstruction work and addition of a storey being the uniting as a homogeneous but not uniform new building, both on the inside and outside, various "room-identities” were placed on top of each other.

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 last building to be built for the "Am Lohbach” residential development project was the residential and nursing home for seniors designed by Bernhard and Stefan Marte as an atrium house. An open light-flooded building with nursing rooms on the upper storeys organised as residential groups. To the east of the home is a district square with a café for the residents; the café is also open to the general public.

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.

From the outside, the solitary building at the university bridge – a residential building mainly built for use by students – presents itself as a shiny white "monolith” with a distinctive cut off corner and rhythmic offset window openings. A house high "entrance slot” leads to the completely different "inside world” where two bent wall slabs covered with oak slats form a paved courtyard accessible via wide loggia landings.

For the "2008 Days of Architecture”, aut. architektur und tirol commissioned a 52 m long multi-use walk-on platform in the Walther Park. The temporary building, designed by the columbosnext group, after the "Days of Architecture” remained, first until autumn, then with another permit for nearly two more years, inviting the general public to appropriate a piece of public space and use it for various purposes – and, not in the least, to stop turning their backs to the river instead of experiencing it as a vital part of the cityscape.

With the Hypo Tyrol Bank Headquarters on the Boznerplatz, a further regional bank has set new architectural trends in the town centre. The transparent building with its vertical slat covering matches the height of the surrounding buildings. With a slight bend at the corner it follows the course of the road and, towards the top of the building it develops into a top floor full of character with a glazed conference room.

Across the street from the central station and bus station, an old MPreis branch was expanded and re-shaped to become an appropriately urbane corner of this busy square, with a café and restaurant at street level. The existing building structure, reduced to its barest essentials by all kinds of miracles of stress analysis, is the spectacular eye-catcher in an otherwise rather heterogeneous mass of buildings, together with the green wavy ceiling.

The facility mainly built of visible concrete and glass, creates, in dimensionally varying layers, a crossover between the landscape, the edge of the slope and the busy road running along the Inn. The inside of the building, which from the side facing the road appears to be cubic, opens up towards the garden through the surrounding open area. Here, numerous sports facilities including an outdoor swimming pool enable children to carry out their activities.

As a further development of the "Am Lohbach I” project completed in 2000, the Innsbruck Stadtbau GmbH constructed a further five residential buildings. Based on the original town planning concept, Baumschlager & Eberle and driendl*architects realised the two or rather three chessboard type blocks of flats, which although next to each other are slightly offset. Generous, light-flooded development zones characterise the inside of the buildings.

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.

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.

In response to the town planning situation in the vicinity of the square shaped church from Horst Parson and, as a transition from residential buildings down to the banks of the Inn zone, Johannes Wiesflecker built a high-standard student’s residence with generously designed rooms and common areas all packed into two basic square buildings of different character. Beneath the building is a hollow space serving as a passage to the Inn.

When the new BTV city forum was built, the adjacent school, listed as a protected monument, was bought by the bank, to become part of the headquarters. The ground floor and the first floor were then turned into a restaurant and bar. Very subtle interventions opened the front so as to create opportunities for communication between the urban space and the interior. The materials used, the light design and the colours create a very specific atmosphere.

A solitary cube with an intriguingly structured façade of concrete, glass and larch wood – this is the annex of the Amras elementary school. Very appropriately adapting to the scale of the usually smaller, village-like buildings of a city quarter that had actually once been a small farming village, it does not add to but rather detract from, as it were, the mass of the old school building, and still manages to define e new central square for Amras.

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.

After the Bergisel ski jump, the four station buildings and the oblique suspension bridge across the river make up the second project Zaha Hadid realised in Innsbruck. Starting from the fundamental concept of a shell and the shadow thrown by it, she designed an organically shaped glass shell over a concrete landscape, the translucent roof spreading and extending, as it were, the stations’ spaces, thus staging a drama of movement adapted to the particular character of each location.

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.

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.

A former office on the first floor of a house, again listed under the federal law on the protection of monuments, was turned into a restaurant where one can take part, as it were, in the visual and acoustic drama that is happening in the street, and then switch effortlessly to concentrating on the works of art provided by the kitchen. The wide oriel window in front is as much part of the street’s public space as it works as a theatre box to look out from within, from an interior space characterised by black panels and various kinds of dark wood.

After the Bergisel ski jump, the four station buildings and the oblique suspension bridge across the river make up the second project Zaha Hadid realised in Innsbruck. Starting from the fundamental concept of a shell and the shadow thrown by it, she designed an organically shaped glass shell over a concrete landscape, the translucent roof spreading and extending, as it were, the stations’ spaces, thus staging a drama of movement adapted to the particular character of each location.

The entrance and the shop rooms of an old building, which comes under the federal law on the protection of monuments, had to be adapted to house an optician’s shop. The long main room, with a baroque vault, was returned, as far as possible, to its original state. A sculptural piece of furniture with a tapestry of red felt, and a working table covered by green rubber stand free of the walls to counterpoint the historical brickwork.

The new centre of the Olympic Village, the winning project of a Europan competition, is said to be, and really is, a textbook example of urban density added to a pre-existing tissue, injecting also new meaning and creating a new identity for "suburbia”. The L-shaped building consists of a lower part containing shopping areas and public institutions like a kindergarten and a 16-storey residential tower, and encloses a square with (fortunately only) few pieces of urban furniture, thus leaving a lot of space for a variety of potential uses, creating a stage for the every-day vitality this city district is able to exude.

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.

The BTV City Forum, right in the centre of the city core, is the bank’s new company headquarter, containing offices, an ample customers’ centre, an event hall and rooms for contemporary art and photography expositions. The sculptural building complex fits in well with the pre-existing Gruenderzeit block structure, the corner being marked by a striking tower. The core of the building is the grand soaring hall.

The stations originally designed in the late 1920s by Franz Baumann certainly are some of the most important monuments of modernism in Tyrol. In the course of a technological upgrade of the cable railway, the stations had inevitably to be adapted both functionally and spatially. All the necessary interventions, however, were developed strictly along the lines of either severely restoring the original building as designed by Baumann, thus cancelling all later additions, or ostentatiously showing contemporary additions to be just that: changes added because they were necessary.

When the municipal corporation IKB decided to move workshops and warehouses, demolishing the old buildings in the backyard of the company headquarter, this was an opportunity for the regional government to concentrate some services formerly scattered over various places. At the same time, it was possible to create new public spaces and passages to link the city centre with the Wilten district. The offices are grouped around three green interior courtyards with glass roofs, an atrium doubling as the central lounge and two more passage-like entrances guarantee easy accessibility for the public.

What formerly had been the university botanic garden is now a park-like public green with old trees right in the centre of town. By situating the transparent structure of the new elementary school along Angerzellgasse, and by building three underground gyms – which are used by the adjacent high school as well – it was possible not to disturb the park as a peaceful "green island” in the hectic inner city.

This is another one of the office buildings designed by Johannes Wiesflecker to make up the new Sparkasse headquarters along Sparkassenplatz. The adjacent, older, building became part, in a way, of the square’s re-design: In cooperation with the landscape architect Rainer Schmidt, the building’s front was turned into a "green wall”.

The central bus station shapes the southern fringe of the station square. The hotel there was conceived as the counterpart, not only as far as dimensions were concerned, to the station hall. While the station hall is a cube of light below street level, the hotel is a black monolith above street level and, at the same time, keeps waiting bus passengers in the spacious area underneath safe from any bad weather.

Next to Perrault’s City Hall and mall, a private investor commissioned an apartment and office building on Anichstraße, the ground floor passage also serves as the southern entrance to the mall. Here, Perrault designed a tower in different shades of dark colours, with a 20 m golden metal curtain in front - an allusion, of course, to the famous Golden Roof - that stages a striking entrance to the mall, since this was not possible on Maria-Theresien-Straße, out of respect for the conservation of monuments.

A very urbane, if not metropolitan café in a 15th century building listed as a monument? Yes, that is what the "Manna" is. The narrow room, partly stretching over two storeys, is virtually subdivided by a rather complex spatial organisation, the materials – predominantly oak and black glass – contrast the historical substance.

The bookstore on Sparkassenplatz, by Rainer Köberl, is a "black box” for books. Through two big store windows one can look into the store. Before and behind the windows there is a lot of space for books to be presented. The floor, the walls, the ceiling and the furniture – everything is black, so everybody’s attention will be focussed on the true stars of the production: the books.

Amidst architecturally heterogeneous buildings, the Isser optician’s shop creates a space for the eyes to rest. Almost unimpaired, passers-by can look into the show and sales area and concentrate on the goods presented there, since the purist design refrains from distracting their attention.

A long-stretching red cover encloses the Innsbruck Central Station; its main level had been lowered down to be directly accessible from the underground parking lot. The spacious grand hall with a gallery houses the railway’s customer area, shops, cafés and restaurants. The perforated concrete cover engulfs all the building’s functions and allows quick and furtive, filtered, as it were, glances from the platforms into the city.

At the same time the Central Station was re-built, the station square was re-designed. Separate lanes for car traffic and public transport, and an underground parking lot directly accessible from the station hall make sure that different modes of transport do not interfere with one another. The asphalt’s artificial red color nicely relates to the station building.

The individual stores of the MPreis food chain, which was the first to use high quality architecture to express its corporate identity, are designed by ever varying architects to precisely fit into or react to a specific context. This one, situated on the lower level of the Central Station, without daylight, is a "glittering cave”. Black glass panels form the ceiling and mirror the goods staged on brightly lit shelves and the customers, thus creating a theatre of goods that refuses to be imprisoned by well-defined limits of space.

Covered by something like a crochet veil of bronze sheets, and actually rather small in comparison to the looming apartment buildings, the building of the bank’s branch office is hovering over the halfway underground customer parking lot. With a small square in front, and the drive-in telling machine, this precious little jewelery box of a bank projects a new urban quality into what before had been just another suburban block.

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.

The cubic structure, and its translucent skin – an alien here – provoked controversial discussions. This 21st century building asserts itself, un-self-consciously, against the adjacent baroque Taxis palace, the Servites’ Church across the street, and the square in front of the seat of the regional government behind. And still it sensitively fits into the urban tissue, respecting proportions and historical axes and throughways.

After long years of having to cope with a lack of working space, finally the rehearsal stages and workshops were transferred to an annex building. The various functions can easily be read from the outside as an addition of various different spatial structures, the piled-up units are obviously inviting future additions whenever necessary.

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.

Here, Dominique Perrault, architect of the new City Hall and mall, created a public space over the roofs of the city. With glass walls all around, nothing interferes with the perfect view over the roofs and cupolas of the city centre, over old and new towers, to the mountain tops. Not an everyday sight, but a place to rest for a while.

On the SOWI campus the "Solo Pasta” restaurant and then the "Solo Vino” n. 1 und 2 wine bars opened in rapid succession one after another. All three are characterised by a minimalist and everything but Zeitgeist-minded design making use of few and sensitively tuned materials. Customers can freely walk from one to the other rooms. Following a change in ownership, there has been some refurbishment not quite in line with the original concept

The Penz design-hotel with its interior design by the Vienne office Jiszda & Partner, forms the northwest completion of the Town Hall area planned by Dominique Perrault. The completely glazed north façade provides the rooms with a lovely panorama view; from the outside the dark glass reflects the images of the buildings around the square. A restaurant with an American bar and terrace can be found on the completely glazed top floor.

The new Bergisel ski jump is a landmark that is visible from most every part of town. The various functional elements, while still perfectly and precisely serving their purpose as mere instruments of sports competition, were moulded into an elegantly sculptural and expressively dynamic construction symbolising the ski jumper’s movement.

What formerly used to be just a parking lot in the back of the old City Hall now has become an exciting mix of heterogeneous functions: city administration, city council, shopping mall, a hotel and various restaurants and cafés. Intelligently graded heights, a glass roof for the mall, plus a central "Campanile” – these are the main characteristics of an unpretentious and still very outspoken ensemble that easily and fluently manages to integrate the pre-existing older buildings and to connect to the cityscape around it.

The State Hospital and University Clinics, on the western fringe of the city centre – originally built towards the end of the 19th century on what was then an empty lot on the outskirts of town – is a "city within the city”. The medical centre on Anichstraße replaced the former gynaecological and ophthalmic wards, the architects organized 40.000 cubic meters in six storeys, around two spacious interior courtyards, so as to give a new spatial order to what was a rather heterogeneous neighbourhood. The intuitively self-explanatory organization of the various units manages to create an air of cosy and calm "wellness”, closer to a hotel than to traditional technology-ridden medical treatment.

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.

This new quarter is the westernmost part of the city, closing off the residential area towards a zone reserved for agricultural use. With over 300 apartments, at the time it was built it was Austria’s largest low-energy housing project. The master plan was designed by the Vorarlberg architects Carlo Baumschlager and Dietmar Eberle; it consists of six very compact single buildings staggered, as it were, on a chessboard, creating a multitude of views and perspectives into the surrounding landscape that defy the high density.

To the adjacent building south of this one, Lackner (1995-96) added a "crown”, the Brenner archive, thus substantially redefining both its shape and identity.

In order to only minimally disturb services at the pre-existing university cafeteria and to make optimal use of the available building area, Lackner sort of built a bridge over the cafeteria. Glazed steel frames in brilliant orange stretch over the old building that was also given a brush-up in the process. Receding terraces contain seminar rooms and the library of the school of translators, transforming the old cafeteria building into a "city balcony” next to the river.

For the Amsterdam UN Studio (Ben van Berkel and Caroline Boss), this was the first international competition they won. The sculpturally carved building boasts an outer skin of black basalt, rising out of an environment of blackened concrete. The interior is, of course, not open to the public, it hosts the transformers and the control centre that are part of the essential infrastructure of the city.

Since the 1960’s, the Taxis palace, built around 1690 by J. M. Gumpp the Elder, hosts the Region’s contemporary art gallery. To create additional space for exhibitions, a new hall was carved into the courtyard of the baroque palace that now – not unlike in a pond – is mirrored in the glass roof of the new underground hall. That kind of interaction between the historical ensemble and contemporary intervention is characteristic of the entire project, so art exhibitions have found an architecturally fascinating location.

The formerly commercial cinema, designed by Hubert Prachensky in the 1950’s, was cautiously adapted to house an art film society. The new steeply rising auditorium guarantees good view from every seat and, at the same time, makes room for a second, smaller auditorium situated crossways under the bigger one. The lounge bar serves as a meeting point not only for movie addicts.

The Tyrol Savings and Loan headquarters in Innsbruck takes up several buildings on Erlerstraße and Sparkassenplatz. In 1994, the restructuring of the customer area, with a new entrance from the square rather than from Erlerstraße, marked the beginning of a complete re-launch of the bank’s headquarters and the square. Generally, what once had been a traditional – and somewhat stuffy - bank hall, emanating solidity and security, now is becoming an ultra-modern high-tech service zone; Wiesflecker’s customer area here was one of the first, establishing "banking by dialogue” as a ground rule, and spreading "service isles” throughout the customer area.

The new Social Sciences and Economics building is a most important urban joint between the Old Town and the historical park of the Imperial Garden, widely commended not only as a great work of architecture, but as an achievement in urban development. Formerly, the massive military barracks had virtually occupied all the available space, tightly closing itself off from the street, now there is a vital public space, a truly "open university” in the heart of the city centre.

Starting at the Seegrube is a short chair lift up the west slope to the Frau-Hitt-Warte. Both lift stations are reduced to a functional and technical minimum, are by no means spectacular, but are still individual architectural designs. The steel-wood constructions were prefabricated and lifted to their locations by helicopter; here they were connected to their previously constructed foundations.

Across the street from the "South Tyrolean Settlement” of the ‘40s, Lackner built his version of low-income housing. The rather flat and long-stretched volume is accentuated by wave-like rising structures above the four entrance areas; the apartments here are shifted upwards by a half storey. The rhythm of the spacious oriels that are a characteristic element of these buildings is determined by the different types and sizes of the apartments.

On the edge of the Old Town, an empty lot left over from the war was filled with a sharply cut austere cube which ostensibly did not even try to fake stylistic allusions to fit in with the surroundings, although the volume, the materials and some details do interact nicely with the historic environment. The front conspicuously completes the "city wall” surrounding the Old Town, an interior courtyard leaves enough free space so as not to interfere with a neighbouring neo-baroque palace, and an old house at the back was refurbished and integrated with the new office space.

This cultural centre – the name literally translates as "greenhouse” – was planted in the city centre in the 1980’s. The hermetic octagonal structure made out of dark Lecca stones was to symbolise the stubbornly provocative mind of the then young and ever-belligerent impresario. Since then, the building was enlarged and also, in a way, "opened”, by Reinhard Honold, in 2001, and has become, together with the events staged there, a well-established part of the city’s cultural life.

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.

The Ursulines’ School, dating back to the Seventies, is radically different, both spacially and structurally, from any other school building in Austria. The Public School is built up in layers, as it were. The classrooms, every single one getting daylight from two sides, are situated on the top floor, the sports and leisure sections form an open central space on the ground floor as well as underground. The structure consists of one-storey-high steel frames with diagonal braces, which not only determines the way the building presents itself to view, it defines also the sequence of large-scale interior spaces allowing for manifold visual interrelations.

To create the necessary space for a variety of purposes without, however, outgrowing the scale, both in area and volume, of the surrounding buildings, Lackner designed a two-storey building, setting the congregation room, most unusually, on the top floor. The main building is more or less "a house just like any other”, but is then upgraded by a lateral cover and a ceiling ideally as well as structurally separated from it.

With this small indoor pool in a private garden Lackner gave a totally new meaning to what apparently was a rather insignificant and traditional task. It is a small, freely and unconventionally shaped closed space; the light filters through seven Perspex cupolas. It is, thus, also a very intimate private space, and the light dancing on the water adds sensuous joy to the swimming. After a change of ownership, the bath was destroyed in 2018.

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.

The church for the new Olympic Village was Lackner’s first major building. With the spatial organisation as well as the then "strange” choice of materials (raw concrete, granite cobblestones) he was way ahead of his time. The square central congregation room rests on a somewhat higher podium and is encircled by a low balustrade wall. This rather closed "central box”, as one might describe it, is then surrounded, on a slightly lower lever, by a stations of the Cross assageway the glass panels of which open up to the everyday life outside.

The architect Franz Baumann originally constructed the three "Nordkettenbahnen” cable car station‘s buildings – Hungerburg, Seegrube and Hafelekar – from 1927 – 1928. These belong to the most important modern age buildings in Tyrol. The way the highly sensitive architecture was adapted to match the mountain is still a fine example of alpine building. Especially worthwhile visiting is the Hafelekar mountain station, which is pressed into the rock like a swallow’s nest and provides a view towards the town and Karwendel.

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.