Detail of the project ed. 2024

chapel-sal­­gen­reute / Austria

Design­er	Bernar­do BADER
Loca­tion	AT-6942 Krum­bach, Salgenreute
Nation	Aus­tria
Design Team	bernar­do bad­er architekten AT-6900 Bregenz
Year	2016
Pho­to credits	all pho­tos AB: Adolf Bereuter

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

Dia­log between place and human

The Sal­gen­reute Chapel is locat­ed on an alpine con­glom­er­ate near Krumbach.
The old chapel could no longer be restored, though it was not the aim to com­plete­ly redo the exist­ing struc­ture. The chapel is a free-stand­ing build­ing dis­play­ing expres­sive archi­tec­ture. It was the result of a cre­ative process of plan­ning and con­struc­tion, char­ac­ter­ized by an out­stand­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion. In a con­cert­ed effort of sev­er­al years of joint­ly plan­ning and build­ing, an exem­plary project cre­at­ed by the inhab­i­tants and crafts­men emerged. Only when more than a hun­dred peo­ple see their work time and orga­ni­za­tion­al skills as qual­i­ty and added val­ue of “doing”, can this bring about the oppor­tu­ni­ty to real­ize such a project and help fund it.

The chapel is built of wood and stone. The sun­light will turn it dark over time, black on the south-side and sil­ver-gray on the north side, much like old farm­hous­es. The basic shape harks back to the exist­ing 200-year-old chapel and includes a main aisle as well as an apse. The shape of the space is new — a steep ris­ing spa­tial fold made out of wood, can­tilevered above the ground. It gen­er­ates appeal with­out the tra­di­tion­al tow­er top via its sig­nif­i­cance and sym­bol­ic val­ue to the place and the over­all theme. 

The foun­da­tion of lime­stone from Alber­schwende was placed as a dry-stone wall, while the walls and ceil­ings above fea­ture hand-sawn larch shin­gles to pro­tect against the ele­ments. The recessed entrance cre­ates a pro­tec­tive porch. The wrought brass door leads into the build­ing inte­ri­or, which is char­ac­ter­ized by both an air of solemn­ness and strik­ing sim­plic­i­ty. Twelve frames, which pre­vent the fold­ed cross-lam­i­­nat­ed tim­ber struc­ture from bend­ing out of shape, accen­tu­ate the height vari­a­tions. The wall pan­el­ing, floors and sim­ple pews are of untreat­ed fir. 

The side­light — enter­ing through the apse glaz­ing — makes the white stained, rough-sawn wood pan­el­ing in the altar area appear like a white tex­tile cov­er­ing. The stat­ue of the moth­er God, which orig­i­nates from the exist­ing build­ing, is not cen­tral­ly arranged like in tra­di­tion­al con­cept, but is on the side. This leaves an unob­struct­ed view straight ahead through the apse and draws the eyes out onto the nat­ur­al land­scape. Who­ev­er enters the chapel leaves sol­id ground and pro­ceeds on a reflec­tive journey.

Explana­to­ry report of the project
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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