Openness With a Sense of Proportion

architect Hans Gangoly
project Institute for the Dialect StudyOberschützen, Austria
written by Isabella Marboe

 

The new Institute for Dialect Study in Oberschützen, designed by architect Hans Gangoly, lies relaxedly and naturally in an existing countryside situation that has developed over time. The grayish-green building adapts with its restrained proportions to the village structure, creating a clear edge towards the street, while reacting with precise differentiation to the old typology towards the inner yard.

 

The colonization of Middle Burgenland was first of all a result of strategic thinking: villages of heroic names (Schütze means archer) connected by roads lined with fruit trees were founded as the first line of defense against the Turks on the border with Hungary. They were made of low buildings of small farms on narrow lots in the middle of vast fields.