Tyrolean greenhouse - Inn Valley, Austria

Architectural Review, The, Sept, 1995 by Peter Wislocki

Schloss Matzen sits on a rocky outcrop, commanding the southern side of the Inn Valley, not far east of innsbruck. Just over a century ago the Baron of Lipperheide, a German nobleman who had amassed a fortune by publishing his country' first fashion magazine, became fascinated by the castle and its surroundings. The Baron and his wife, attempted to buy Schloss Matzen, but their offers were rejected. After further negotiations, however, Lipperheide purchased a substantial plot of land immediately of the west of the castle, which he turned into an exotic park, complete with a romantic lodge to serve as his holiday residence. Lipperheide also commissioned a house for his gardener, with an adjoining glasshouse, situated at the foot of the castle rock.

Lipperheide's plans for his romantic playground were to include more exotic projects: a facsimile of the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis, one of the seven wonders of the antique world, was to be constructed in the park. Sadly, events intervened, and the proposal remained but a dream.

Wolfgang Poschl's clients, a local industrialist and his wife, purchased the gardener's house and Matzen Park, hoping to refurbish the by now dilapidated building, and rebuild the long since demolished glass house. Poschl's scheme can be divided into three main components@ the thorough refurbishment of the existing gardener's house; a strip of cavernous spaces, dug into the hillside, containing generous storage spaces, bathrooms and a bedroom, and the 'hanging garden' itself - a minimalist glass-clad living/dining/cooking space, beneath a roof planting and strip of skylights.

While its exterior was hardly touched, much of the existing house interior was gutted, the ground floor being opened up into a single living space, the upper level retained as three rooms, including the children's bedroom and a study. The building was stripped of superfluous detail: walls are of white plaster throughout, and furnishings are minimal in quantity and minimalist in style. Yet the scale and character of the spaces is reassuringly domestic. Space was gained within the old house by relocating the stairs to a narrow, insideoutside top-lit strip, between the existing walls and the new subterranean quarters.

The underground part of the dwelling enjoys the normal advantages of earth-sheltered structures, above all, thermal stability, which given the Tyrol's often substantial diurnal temperature range, hot summer peaks and extreme winter lows, is a big asset. Light filters to the depths of these metaphoric caves through glass screens whose green tint is suggestive of the bathing waters within, and harmonises with the planting that infiltrates the building's walls and roof.

It is the hanging garden itself which is appropriately the most memorable part of the residence. A simple, rectangular area is enclosed by a cantilevered flat roof of rare complexity and inventiveness. A row of tubular steel 'tree' structures carries vertical compressive loads to the ground, and is tied back to the in-situ concrete of the hillside 'cave'. The opposite edge of the trees carries a steel beam, on which are balanced a series of laminated timber joists.

Over the side of the room looking on to the gardens the joists are concealed above a white plastered ceiling. The hillside end of the timber members, by contrast, is exposed, allowing the ceiling plane to dematerialise at its junction with the rooflight. At this point the steel, metaphoric trees are juxtaposed with the forest outside; the hops planted on the roof of the house are seen next to the large house plants within.

Wolfgang Poschl is justifiably pleased with this complex yet elegant project, regretting only that he could never afford to live in such a house himself. The equally delighted clients have generously allowed him to occupy their home during their absence on holiday - an opportunity to experience Baron Lipperheide's dream at first hand.