Architecture in Lower Austria

Language Notes
Text: German, English


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In the course of the 20th century the Federal State of Lower Austria, a "province" which once belonged to the "city" of Vienna, has emancipated itself in a series of stages. The selection of St. Polten as the federal state capital (in place of Vienna) and the subsequent construction of a government district represent the culmination of this process of emancipation. This rural/industrial region was, until recently, regarded as an architectural wasteland. However, in recent years numerous buildings have been erected which need have no fear of international comparison. Parallel to the works of better known architects such as Coop Himmelb(l)au, Hermann Czech, Ernst Hiesmayr, Hans Hollein, Klaus Kada, Adolf Krischanitz, Laurids Ortner, Gustav Peichl, Boris Podrecca, Elsa Prochazka, Anton Schweighofer, Karla Kowalski/Michael Szyszkowitz and Heinz Tesar who gave a first signal with one or more executed designs, buildings of a high design quality have also been produced by younger architects, most of them from Lower Austria. Ernst Beneder, Walter Ifsits, Paul Katzberger and Karin Bily, Adolph H. Kelz, Gerhard Lindner, Michael Loudon, Elena and Alois Neururer, Rudolf Prohazka, Franz Sam, Franziska Ullmann and others have built a series of sensitive, perfectly worked-out buildings, and a further generation has already completed its apprentice pieces. The interesting and positive development of architectural culture in towns in Lower Austria since the mid-eighties, which received official support through an increase in the number of competitions held and the introduction of design advisory bodies, is documented here by more than one hundred buildings erected in coursse of the last decade. An essay by the architecture critic, Otto Kapfinger, and the texts by Walter Zschokke explain the buildings and illustrate their context. The well-known Viennese architectural photographer, Margherita Spiluttini, and Rupert Steiner, a young photographer, have made an extensive series of


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