Detail of the project ed. 2024

moun­­tain-chapel-wirm­bo­­den / Austria

Design­er Sven Matt
Loca­tion Wirm­bo­den, 6882 Schnep­fau, AUSTRIA
Nation Aus­tria
Design Team
Year 2016
Pho­to credits

EXTER­NAL 1: Adolf Bereuter (www.adolfbereuter.com)
EXTER­NAL 2–5 / INTER­NAL 1–5: Dominic Kum­mer (www.dominic-kummer.com)

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

In the Bre­gen­z­er­wald, an alpine val­ley in West­ern Aus­tria, tran­shu­mance is still the com­mon­ly prac­tised form of farm­ing: Live­stock is dri­ven to graze on moun­tain pas­tures in the warmer months. The low­er ones of these pas­tures are called ‘Vorsäß’ while the high­er ones, used in the warmest sum­mer months, are called ‘Alpe’.

Wirm­bo­den is a ‘Vorsäß’ at the foot of the steep north face of the valley’s Kan­is­fluh moun­tain, owned and man­aged by a col­lec­tive of farm­ers. Almost every ‘Vorsäß’ has its own lit­tle chapel or at least some des­ig­nat­ed space for the cel­e­bra­tion of mass­es and the tra­di­tion­al con­se­cra­tion of the farm­ers and their live­stock. For 32 years there was a lit­tle chapel at Wirm­bo­den, but in 2012, the chapel and sev­er­al huts were destroyed by an avalanche. While it was clear from the begin­ning that the huts would be rebuilt, it was more chal­leng­ing to find a con­sen­sus on the con­struc­tion of a new chapel. 

What we see now at Wirm­bo­den is a sym­bol for the col­lec­tive spir­it of this very diverse group of peo­ple. It was them who nego­ti­at­ed, con­ceived, planned, and even­tu­al­ly built this chapel over the course of three years. Today, the moun­tain chapel com­ple­ments the ensem­ble of alpine huts most nat­u­ral­ly; it became the place where neigh­bours meet, where gath­er­ings and cel­e­bra­tions are held, where peo­ple come to take a moment and pray. 

Thanks to prac­ti­cal con­tri­bu­tions by almost every sin­gle mem­ber of the Wirm­bo­den col­lec­tive, the chapel was built with­out any help from third par­ties. Everyone’s par­tic­i­pa­tion made pos­si­ble what seemed impos­si­ble in the begin­ning — mak­ing (almost) every­one hap­py with the result: A gem in the mountains.

Explana­to­ry report of the project
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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