International Architecture Awards Tell a friend

Architects: HOLODECK architects ZT GmbH
Project Team: Marlies Breuss, Michael Ogertschnig, Marc Werner, Lars Oberländer, Iva Olujic, Simon Pranter, Marc Busquets, Johannes Müller, Alexander Garber, Richard Szilvassy, Mija Mikuz
Consultants: TWPL, BPH, BS: kppk, Vienna / TGA: kwi, Vienna
Acoustics: dr.pfeiler, Graz Client: Landesimmobilien Burgenland GmbH
Photographers: Wolfgang Thaler

The building ensemble of the Culture Center includes the state archive, state library, literature house, adult education center, event hall, multipurpose foyer, and hospitality plots. Sensitively positioned in the park-like landscape, the overall composition surges into the steep Wulkalände opposite a sweepingly inclining railway embankment. The introduction of a generous new public space, integrating the derelict area between the cultural and research ensemble and the education facilities, as well as, the preservation of the existing sculptural elements of the exposed-concrete event hall and the remaining northern building, prove themselves as elevating for vivid activities on the restructured site.

The urban and architectural concept includes the preservation of this sculptural identity and the introduction of a new public square for a multitude of users, a spatial layout orientating its accessibility on its positioning to the new middle school, what is more, a direct link to the renewed train station, as well as the reintegration of the preserved structures in the overall vivid, spatial arrangement. The listed sculptural, concrete structure lies opposite the flexible and partible event hall and state archive, and in the landscape precisely embedded contemporarily interpreted and exposed-concrete kubus. The two structural bodies, which evolved from two distinctive architectural times, the Brutalism period and the Contemporary period, are interlinked with a foyer, a spatial and functional joint made of steel and glass.