Architecture Of Graz
As is typical of a city in Central Europe, the townscape of the inner six districts is largely made up of small, uniform buildings and a large number of religious institutions.The remaining districts of Graz showcase a wide range of later twentieth-century architectural styles.The periods of maximum growth and population rise are represented by the architectural styles of the areas outside of the old town.Wilhelminian and historicist architecture are the main influences on the five inner city districts that are situated immediately next to the old town.Formerly remote areas were changed by the construction of multi-story residential buildings with elegant stucco facades.
Several magnificent villa communities were built for the rapidly growing elite of wealthy merchants.Building activity was limited throughout the interwar years because of the hard economic circumstances.Still, the city managed to create a number of civic buildings and housing estates.The city’s topographical alterations occurred mostly between 1950 and 1980. Towering buildings replaced the many war-damaged homes at this period on a regular basis. Simultaneously, huge high-rise housing complexes were developed on the outskirts of the city in an attempt to address the housing shortage.Besides, a lot of single-family houses were constructed in the peripheral.The historicist architectural style, which gave preservation of historical features a lot of weight, was generally regarded as tasteless after the war. As such, many homes with stucco facades had their facades destroyed even if they had not sustained damage during the war. Sometimes, for financial reasons, this was done during renovations.This mostly occurred in parts of the city where the bombing had done significant damage.
The districts of Geidorf and St. Leonhard, which were lucky to escape the bombings with little damage, still have sizable neighborhoods with intact stucco facades.In 1972, the old town was proclaimed a protected area to prevent the planned demolition of entire rows of buildings.In 1974 the city center was subject to a ban on high-rise construction. The decision was made in response to the careless way investors handled the cityscape.The outer edge of the city was preserved with green belts, but overall development density was drastically lowered.Most people consider the green belt and the old town to be significant achievements. But the limitations on building density and high-rise structures have just recently been changed.Urban sprawl was a recognized problem by municipal planners. There are presently many places outside of the old town and the Gründerzeit neighborhoods where high-rise constructions can be developed again.
In excess of 100 million euros were spent on the development of the southern belt between 2014 and 2017 alone. The infrastructure needed to handle traffic was mostly built with this money.Investors intend to develop the sprawling site of the former Reininghaus brewery in Eggenberg’s XIV district. This outstanding area, located near the city center, will see tremendous development in the next years.The present strong demand for apartments is pushing the construction of vacant lots as well as the extension of existing residences.For some years, new entrepreneurs have been settling in select districts such as Mariahilfergasse and Lendplatz. These settlements are frequently co-working spaces.
Modern architecture
The history of more recent modern architecture in the Styrian capital is closely linked to the idea of the Graz School (not to be confused with the Graz School of Philosophy), which has been in existence since the late 1960s.Was it a group or a scene, a movement or neither?She clearly left behind some amazing constructions, though.“The Graz School phenomenon occupies an unassailable place in the history of architecture in the second half of the twentieth century because it is so distinctive in its features as it is independent.” The term initially referred to a tiny, thematically homogeneous group headquartered at Graz Technical University (Friedrich Achleitner citation) But in 1981 there was a renaming, and this title was extended to include all significant buildings built by Graz architects since the 1960s.
First to promote a new architectural theory internationally were Günther Domenig and Szyszkowitz + Kowalski, both graduates of Graz TU.A large number of structures in the Graz university area and the dining room in the inner courtyard of a monastery in Graz-Eggenberg (Domenig and Huth, 1973–77) are examples of buildings outside of the old town protection zones.Among these are the RESOWI centre, the greenhouses of Volker Giencke, and the 1994 extension building for the Technical University of Graz designed by Günther Domenig.Moreover, in 1967 Domenig and Huth created the International Bilingual School in Graz-Eggenberg.
Numerous new buildings were built in 2003 to strengthen Graz’s standing as the European Capital of Culture. These included the Children’s Museum, the Kunsthaus by Peter Cook and Colin Fournier, the Stadthalle by Klaus Kada, and the Murinsel by Vito Acconci.The latter are not Graz School architects and painters, yet their basic architectural style is.Since 2009, the University of Art and the housing complex Rondoby Markus Pernthaler have shared a contemporary space with the “Mumuth” by Ben van Berkel and the “Frog Queen” by the artist collective “Splitterwerk”.The major railway station in Graz, the currently under construction Smart City Graz Science Tower, and the 2010 completion of the GS Architects tower “MP09 Headquarters” are other noteworthy buildings.For the Graz University of Art and Design and the new structures on the MedUni Graz campus, it was less about design and more about recognisability via the architecture and material of the exterior.
The Pritzker Prize winner Zaha Hadid controversially moved the “Argos” façade and shape to Graz’s historic center.Another amazing building that stands out against the surrounding landscape is the technically creative home project built in an empty plot between the opera and the castle.Dietmar Feichtinger and Coop Himmelb(l)au took part in an international, invited competition that resulted in the stacking “serviced apartments” building.With the 17-year planning and building phase came protests. “The building is a foreign body in the middle of the old town,” claim the critics.
Situated in the baroque Palais Thinnfeld next to the Kunsthaus Graz, the non-profit Haus der Architektur (HDA) was founded in 1998 and makes a major contribution to modern and contemporary architecture.
Green spaces and parks
Seventy percent of Graz’s urban area is green, and gardens from the city’s numerous single-family houses make up a sizable amount of this.The whole western, northern, and eastern limits of the city are included in the special protective green belt.Parks abound in Graz.Apart from Stadtpark, the principal park of Graz, one should also include Volksgarten, Augarten, Schlosspark Eggenberg, Eustacchio Nature Park, and Burggarten.The Schloßberg was also greened and has been used as a leisure area ever since the castle was demolished in the eighteenth century.
Beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, during the Gründerzeit, front gardens were installed in the formerly rural suburbs of Geidorf, Jakomini, and St. Leonhard as a link between home and public space, in accordance with a design philosophy that promoted urbanity when residential buildings were constructed.The calling card of this household was wrought iron fences and ornamental plants like hydrangeas, roses, magnolias, and lilacs.Front gardens communicate an urban-spatial element, have historical, cultural, and aesthetic value, and play a significant ecological function.The Styrian Nature Conservation Union produced photo documentation in 2003 on behalf of Graz Urban Planning that lists the 800 Wilhelminian front gardens that have been safeguarded since 2008 under the Graz Old Town Preservation Act, including the building’s facade and inner courtyard.
Walks and hikes with views of the city are offered by the mountains that encircle the Graz Basin from west to northeast (Buckkogel, Hohe Rannach, Leber, Lustbühel, Platte, Leechwald, and Plabutsch); they are also easily reached by public transit from the center.The 7-Summits-Graz, the city of Graz’s sports year in 2021, gave the already beautiful city of Graz still another feature.The seven most prominent heights in and around Graz are to be hiked.A developing network of mountain bike routes also links the principal areas of Schöckl and Plabutsch.With gorges and caverns like the Bärenschützklamm, the Kesselfallklamm, and the Lurgrotte, the Grazer Bergland, which stretches from the Schöckl, the original mountain of Graz, at 1445 m to the Hochlantsch at 1720 m, expands these possibilities even more.
For history buffs, day trips to the Piber Federal Stud, where Lipizzaners are raised and trained for the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, or the Austrian Open-Air Museum in Stübing, some 20 kilometers north of the city, are options.
Austrian artists have remodeled two churches in the greater Graz area: the St. Jakob Church in Thal, which Ernst Fuchs added to and furnished, and the Hundertwasser Church in Bärnbach, which was planned by Friedensreich Hundertwasser.In Bärnbach, Ernst Fuchs put up a fountain.
