Cultural attractions in Bolzano/Bozen

Museion and its bridge link the old Austrian and the new Italian neighborhoods of the city, creating a built connection to a new era opposite the divisive Fascist architecture of the victory monument. The stylistic idiom of the mostly closed building, wrapped in its aluminum armor and with its far-reaching right angles, opens onto both parts of the city with its glassed narrow sides, encouraging one to enter. These glass facades are transformed into projection screens in the urban setting when darkness falls. The purely white architecture takes over the clear rooms inside, without dominating: a function to serve diverse exhibitions. The two swaying parts of the bridge over the Talvera/Talfer River form part of the museum’s concept: they symbolize the crossover of the two cultures that coexist here.

In terms of design, responding to Angiolo Mazzoni's imposing train station building (1928), on the opposite side of the street, was no easy task. This has been achieved to the point that the new building, like the train station, goes beyond architecture and is now an urban structure. Its undulated form, which is divided into individual houses, is determined by the surrounding urban spaces: by the semicircular station square on the front, by the rectangular Magnagoplatz, and by the Laurin- and Rittner Straße at the rear. The building itself is crossed by three radial passageways from the station square and has two inner courtyards. The facades on the ground and mezzanine floors are clad in white marble, the four upper floors in reddish porphyry. The interior spaces of the building are well illuminated; the design of the office departments is varied.

The rather unattractive post office of the 1950s was converted into a passive house to be used as an administration building. The addition of two more stories improved its size, also in relation to the surrounding area. Next to the elegant station tower, the stairwell of this old building no longer fit in and was covered with solar panel elements during the conversion. The bulky body of the building was brought to life through various window designs, which allow for an interplay of shadow and light. The 3% extra costs spent on energy-saving technology for the building has paid itself within five years: this gold low-energy house only costs 45 euro per worker on heating, as opposed to the 270 euro buildings in category C pay. This is, in fact, the first office block in Italy that meets passive house standards. The interior, with its wide corridors for special uses, is light and friendly, using only the simplest materials.

Sigmundskron is a symbol found in South Tyrol's early history. It was first mentioned in 945 and was built into a fortress in 1473 by Duke Sigmund. In 1996 the ruins were taken over by the Autonomous Province of Bolzano-Bozen and in 2003 they were handed over to Reinhold Messner to be transformed into the Messner Mountain Museum. The preservation of the character and protection of the ruins was the main concern during the conversion building works. The steel constructions which were developed for this purpose were positioned at a distance with as few contact points as possible with the outer stone walls and the interior of the towers and rooms, so that these seemingly light architectural elements can be removed at any time. The design of these sections of the building has been kept as simple as possible, and they are clearly set apart from the historical parts of the building. This allows for a distinct demarcation of the old and the new.

It was Mussolini’s idea to establish a memorial to the fallen soldiers of the First World War on the site where a monument to the Kaiserjäger had already been commenced. A collection of donations throughout the whole of Italy financed the new monument. However, the architect designed a victory monument in the style of Roman triumphal arches as apologia for the conquest-hungry fascists with its insignia and an inscription, which refers to the martial tradition of the Roman Empire. It was seen as a grave insult to German-speaking South Tyroleans. After lengthy negotiations between the province of South Tyrol and the Italian cultural ministry, the high-fenced-in monument opened, in the catacombs of the building, a permanent exhibition in 2014 about events that unfolded under two dictatorships from 1918-1945, in order to improve understanding and communication.

Urban planning considerations led to three parallel, elongated wings of varying heights, the two-story covered entrance which is situated on Lazzeriniplatz Square. Its use of the same materials: exposed concrete, steel and glass throughout, and consistent design, convey an architectonically heterogeneous environment of tranquility and space. From the entrance you walk into a spacious, light-flooded hall between the first and second wings, which reaches all of the floors. Underneath there is the sports hall, with stair towers at the ends. The glazed steel bridges, designed by Heimo Zobernig, allow for open access to the third wing and to the break area of the roof terrace.

The Province Technical College for the Health Professions was built in close proximity to Bolzano Hospital. The two-story reinforced concrete structure, surrounded by a glass facade, towers on an L-shaped plan. With steel supports for the balconies in front of the facade and the broad, cantilevered canopy construction, which goes around the whole building. The structure is light, almost floating, an interesting contrast to the monumental staircases built in front. The interior design, with floors made of pale natural stone, partition walls made from maple, glass and aluminum as well as its warm colors, lend Claudiana Province Technical College a pleasant atmosphere. There is a broad, square tiled plaza in front of the building, which conveys a very spacious feel.

Behind the monastery garden rises the light facade of the Kapuzin Monastery, next to which the disguised new school building built in a grey sandstone sits unnoticed. A section of wall was added onto the old east-facing facade, behind which there is a corridor with classrooms that look onto the intimate monastery courtyard. The majority of the rooms had to be built underground due to the extremely limited space available. Illumination in these rooms has been created through skylights in the garden and sophisticated guided shafts of light. This directed lighting removes any trace of a cellar-like feeling, and allows for a highly concentrated learning environment. An elegant set of steel steps leads from the entrance hall to all of the floors; all of the corridors are colorfully decorated. An aesthetic symbiosis between the old and the new has been found for this place of teaching and learning.

At the southern entrance to the Old City, this building creates a three dimensional town with a city gate, pathways and open spaces which connect the various business areas internally as well as vertically. The large glass surfaces of the otherwise smooth and forbidding aluminum and glass facade create an individual setting for the way into the city of Bolzano – the openness and exclusivity of commercial activities are recorded here. The corner building marks clearly the city's border; all that is missing is an adjoining building to complete this effect. The interior spaces are of an ideal temperature, using very little energy altogether. A closed office atmosphere is avoided by the transparency of the succession of rooms created by elegant glass walls and light corridors; teamwork is encouraged and the visitor is openly welcomed.

Based on the urban concept of Dutch architect Frits van Dongen, this group of buildings nettled between orchards and vineyards was developed with farmsteads and castles in mind. In keeping with the “Living in the Park” concept, the three separate buildings comprising the polygonal residential block are centered around a spacious courtyard. Large free-form entrances connect it to the underground garage and form the well-lit main entrance to the complex. Sophisticated architectural design was created in order to conform to the restrictive guidelines for the sponsored residential complex. Four layout designs and three different window shapes were employed in creating flats for 92 families, all designed slightly differently. The exteriors are of a rough, beige concrete while the smooth, white-varnished facades of the courtyard optimize the open space of the private courtyard.

Under Mussolini in the 1930s, Italian factory workers were settled in a garden city called the Semirurali. These very simple houses with gardens for self-sufficiency were demolished in the postwar period, and replaced by modern residential buildings. The new complex tried not to distribute and make freely accessible the individual residential buildings around the property but rather to plan squares and streets in accordance with the existing “rules of urban design.” In the spaces between, contiguous rows of buildings were built. They border the streets and squares, as was common in the cities before the relaxed construction of modern times gave up these norms. In spite of the row construction, the buildings stand out as individual homes because of the arrangement of loggias and glass coverings as the color scheme, and thereby convey a feeling of identity.

Loffererhof Farm and its greenhouses, located behind the old Gries church, were demolished shortly after 1900, and the elementary school and kindergarten were built in 1908. The school was renovated in 1998. A gymnasium was added to this building group in 2002, an independent fourth building that encloses the intermediate schoolyard space. The transparent construction, a steel-and-glass structure, is reminiscent of the Orangerie that was formerly located here. The ball-proof suspended construction of the glass façade makes the building appear transparent and affords views of the old chestnut tree. The cafeteria, a final addition, was completed in 2008, inserted into the narrow space between the street and the old school building underground with a skylight in such a way that the historical building still appears detached.

This vocational school underneath Mount Virgl in Haslach was created through a competition in 1975. The compact building complex comprises four units: the three-part office and classroom wing, the two wings of the workshops, the auditorium and the gym. The concrete construction with exposed brick infill forms a very sustainable structure for which an expansion program was developed in the 1990s, which led to the addition of another story onto the previously built three-story class and office building. On the ground floor a meeting room for 150 people was built, with foyer and control room. At the same time, the technical infrastructure – heating, sanitary facilities, water treatment system with solar collectors – was renovated and upgraded. The addition of the new story matches the existing building structure, but is clearly recognizable as an extension.

The contemporary longing for nature and sports in the city influenced the thinking of the Fascist municipal government of Bolzano/Bozen and, as a result, had an outdoor swimming complex built on the banks of the Isarco/Eisack River. From a horticultural viewpoint, the site was designed as a striking landscape architecture within the urban area. The buildings show the influence of the Italian rationalist thought of those years, oriented towards the Bauhaus. Clear functionality and a design that is both reduced and concentrated on the essential, avoided Fascist monumentality of any kind. The plastered entrance building with its sweeping terrace section shows expressive motifs that do not deny the influence of the Gmunden outdoor pool by Franz Gessner, a student of Otto Wagner's. Although this architecture seemed strange to the South Tyroleans of the day, it is nevertheless of lasting quality.

The Fascist Youth GIL Buildings emerged in Merano/Meran, Bressanone/Brixen and Bolzano/Bozen in the 1930s according to designs by the architects Miozzo and Mansutti. Although in need of renovation, only the Bressanone structure has retained its original form. In Bolzano one of the most important buildings of Fascist Italy's rationalism period, a structure that had already been dilapidated, has been successfully repurposed. It was renovated and expanded through a competition. The fact that an Austrian architect achieved this, shows the overlap of cultures in Bolzano. The renovated, heritage-listed old building sections, painted in Tuscany red, were contrasted with a transparent building of glass and steel on a lightweight concrete structure, which also redefined the urban context with a vestibule, garden café and garden courtyard. The design of the interior spaces is just as light as that of the external appearance.

Anyone who approaches Bolzano/Bozen from the south along the A22 will see the Salewa building, to the right of the highway, a modern gateway to the city. Three office towers, with four, seven and twelve floors respectively, are set in a urban dialogue one with the other and with the surrounding mountain landscape. Through the freely formed designs as well as the facades of dark glass and gray aluminum, the building mass retreats and yet, at the same time, matches the colors of the mountain. In the seemingly unusually shaped building volumes made of a reinforced concrete structure with curtained glass and/or metal facades, South Tyrol’s largest climbing gym is housed in addition to the company warehouse and administrative offices. This structure adjoins a small recreational park with a garden area and a restaurant, which matches Salewa’s sporting goods production nicely.