Architecture is Message

architects Dieter Henke & Marta Schreieck
project Faculty for Social and Economic Sciences of the University of Innsbruck (SOWI), Innsbruck, Austria
written by Friedrich Achleitner

 

It is exactly in a region such as Tyrol where reportedly, already for decades, every guest’s wish could be guessed in advance and where no building stupidity is spectacular enough, causing by it the building culture to be slowly but systematically destroyed by misdirected over-zealousness, one should hope that “The Faculty for Social and Economic Sciences” would provoke the raising of consciousness or at least cause a productive unease.

 

But, it is necessary to state this clearly: the University building such as it stands here today and which, almost naturally, has become a part of the old Innsbruck town core is, in the interaction of all factors and forces which brought to its realisation, almost bordering on miracle for Tyrolean and Austrian circumstances. One person was at the beginning (Professor Manfred Gantner), who not only had a great idea but who was also prepared to carry it out and to fight for it. A competition followed resulting in good results(the president of the jury was Roland Rainer), and obviously it was also a client (The Federal Property office) prepared to give the young and, on this scale, unexperienced architects, its thrust and support.