Architecture

Dietmar Steiner was director of the AZW (Architekturzentrum Wien) until 2016 – he was considered an accomplished connoisseur, critic and lover of Austrian and international architecture.
Dietmar Steiner sadly passed away in May 2020. Our friendship with Dietmar and his many friends in architecture gave us the idea of travelling to Basel together and getting Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron on board for this project.

Many people are familiar with the impressive buildings by Basel architects Herzog & de Meuron. The Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Tate Modern in London or the Allianz Arena in Munich. Now the "kleiner Löwe" project on Kornmarktplatz in Bregenz is also on their list of works. It started out as a dream, but Dietmar Steiner has turned it into reality. Dietmar believed in the project right from the start, without his support this building would not exist. We are very grateful for that.

The historic Kornmarktplatz represents the social and cultural center of the city between Lake Constance and the local mountain Pfänder. Key institutions including the Kunsthaus Bregenz and the vorarlberg museum, the Vorarlberger Landestheater as well as shops, cafés and restaurants are located here. The Kornmarktplatz was originally active as a supra-regional transport hub for the grain trade, later transforming into the city’s central traffic hub. In 2013, it was traffic-calmed and has since returned to its original function as a marketplace.
The buildings’ current neo-baroque appearance dates to its use as a bank at the beginning of the 20th century. Following a roof fire, the building remained empty for years, consequently the building fabric suffered greatly and could no longer be preserved.

Two firewalls close off the building running along its sides in the urban bloc connected by a barrel-shaped roof. The fire walls and the arched roof are uniformly clad forming a white metal skin, which is color-coordinated with the existing facade in light blue with white ornamentation. Generous glazing provides an unobstructed view of the lake and over the roofs to the ridge of the Pfänder – with living spaces and hotel rooms oriented towards the narrow sides of the building accordingly. The center of the building houses a vertical access and roof terrace, bringing daylight in through a roof cutout. The multifunctional salon on the ground floor spans the entire depth of the building but can be divided into two separate rooms by a movable partition.