Hohengasser Steiner Wirnsberger: Adaptation of a kindergarten in Unterach am Attersee

摘要

Unterach, a small town with a population of 1,500 located at the south-western end of the lake known as the Attersee, is aware of its worth. The image of this fishing village snuggling against the slope, which Gustav Klimt recorded in a number of paintings made during summer holidays spent there, is carefully cultivated. In Unterach, however, it is not only the numerous holiday guests, some of them well-known personalities, who are considered. The general renovation of one of the the most important buildings in Unterach, the kindergarten, offers convincing evidence of the vitality of this place, also outside the holiday season. Located half-way along the route between the road that runs around the lake and the lakeshore, in the middle of the village, this building, erected 120 years ago, still serves its original function and the volume had not been altered since that time. For the architects' partnership Hohengasser Steiner Wirnsberger this made it all the more important in carrying out the revitalisation to preserve the atmosphere of the kindergarten, which is familiar to almost all the residents of the town, while responding to the need for modernization and for additional space without adding extensions. To achieve this, however, it was necessary to take a precise look at the qualities of the existing building and to reveal them from under the layers that had accumulated over the course of time. A brief summary of these qualities: a structurally clear volume with well-proportioned spaces, soundly anchored in the place and the landscape.