STEINHAUS gunther domenig

from here thanks http://www.theneoncactus.com

I was recently at home visiting my parents on Ossiacher See, Austria, where I have been going my whole life… Austria is really the ultimate escape from China – clean air, clean water, blue skies I just couldn’t get enough of any of it. I was incredibly lucky with the weather and had a perfect week of blue skies and 30 degrees everyday! Whilst I was there I went to visit Guenther Domenig’s Steinhaus, I’ve been passing this house which is at the opposite end of the lake from us for quite a few years now. It has been under construction for what feels like forever but this year it was finished and open to the public. So I went for an evening wonder around the Steinhaus to have a look. It is incredibly serene and although the general public do not seem to be huge fans of it, it is referred to as the “monster”, I love it!

The house is rugged, geometrically rigorous, with casts in concrete, partially perforated by cavity bodies which Guenther Domenig claims refers to the particular landscape configurations of the mountain. The house is conceived as a kind of Architects escape, it breaks out of the rocks, without rocks being the main element. In dealing with the architecture of Carinthia Guenther Domenig, who died earlier this summer, turned against the “hypocrisy of an apparent home architecture.” The result is a beautiful and reflective building that we can now all enjoy.