BRG in der Au Innsbruck
A building with two functions that could hardly be more different: shopping and education. The well-organized concept works remarkably well—and thanks to its reduced land use, is also an ecological gain.
On this traffic-dominated site in the west of Innsbruck, surrounded by a four-lane city street, it was only natural to consider building a shopping center. René Benko—who would later become known for his multi-billion-euro bankruptcy—had secured the site for that purpose but saw additional potential: why not place two profitable public use floors above? At the same time, the Ministry of Education was looking for a site for a new secondary school and decided to give the experiment a chance.
The result is a public-private partnership serving two users: the In der Au academic secondary school and the shopping center, which opened under the name Q West. The two uses are housed in a six-story structure with a footprint of roughly 100 by 100 meters. The shopping center occupies the retail levels on the ground floor and first basement level; the school is located on the second and third upper floors. The first upstairs story is shared: here a triple sports hall with changing rooms and the school’s entrance hall sits side by side with retail spaces. Synergies are used wherever possible—for example, in sharing the cost of the sprinkler system.
Particular emphasis was placed on separating the entrances. The shopping center is accessed on foot from the northeast corner, with large glazed shopfronts. The school entrance is located at the southeast corner on the upper first floor, reached via a staircase and ramp.
From there, a sequence of stairs leads upwards to a system of courtyards, terraces, and very wide central corridors that together form a diverse learning landscape. A cluster structure is made by bunching together groups of eight classrooms. The central zones between classrooms appear oversized at first glance, but reveal their purpose in the underlying educational concept. Originally conceived as a conventional academic secondary school, two generations of women principals have transformed the BRG In der Au into Austria’s flagship project for a department system that spans all grades. The approach works with subject-specific classrooms, designed by the teachers as prepared learning environments. Moving away from the traditional homeroom model requires frequent classroom changes by all students, placing particular demands on the circulation areas. Here, the design follows the principle of using the shortest possible paths, combining transit, learning, break, and storage areas for educational materials into one. The school benefits in this regard from the column grid of the shopping center below, which determined the particularly wide corridors. Outdoor spaces are also generous, with spacious courtyards and 4 000 square meters of sports and recreation areas on the roof.
Formally, the building aligns with the language of classical Modernism. White plaster, slender columns, ribbon windows, and roof gardens could have come right out of Le Corbusier’s 1920s vocabulary. In an environment that is noisy—both in terms of traffic and architecture—the approach works well: a contemplative place above the rooftops provides the calm that good education requires.
[ In der Au Federal Academic Secondary School, Innsbruck ] Architecture: (joint venture) reitter_architekten zt gmbh – Eck&Reiter ZT GmbH, General planning: DMArchitekten. Client: Objekt Linser Areal Immobilienerrichtungs GmbH & Co. KG; IIG, Innsbrucker Immobilien GmbH & Co. KG, on behalf of the Ministry of Education. Structural engineering: ZSZ Ingenieure ZT GmbH. Landscape architecture: Anna Detzlhofer. Procurement procedure: Invited architectural competition. Planning and construction period: 2007–2011. Usable floor area: 10 757 m² (Total building: 43 981 m²). Address: Bachlechnerstraße 35, 6020 Innsbruck, Tyrol.