Architectural Marvels: NP Visitor Center / Nationalparkhaus Alas it was not...

NP Visitor Center / Nationalparkhaus

Alas it was not open, but it is an impressive modern building.
Brutalist and sturdy, the only decoration of the front are a vertical row of smal dark windows and a realistic 1:1 carving of a Bearded Vulture, attached like it flies free some 5m above the ground. It is kind of difficult to find out who built it all. The only thing I could dig up was mention of the building in an old obituary of Karl Spitaler in some paper with free archives, the other way round, the national park service seems not interested to divulge anything about who built their facilities. / Leider war's nicht offen, aber es ist ein eindueckliches dem Brutalismus bverhatetes Gebaeude. Der einzige Schmuck auf der Eingangsseite ist eine vertikale dunkel verglaste Fensterreihe und ein naturgetreues Schnitzwerk von einem Bartgeuer, das vor dem Gebaude in etwa 5m Hoehe angebracht ist als ob es fliegt. Es ist nicht einfach zu googeln we das wohl gebaut hat. In einem Nachruf auf Karl Spitaler in einer Zeitung mit frei erreichbarem Archiv fand ich es erwaehnt, aber umgekehrt scheint der Nationalpark nicht daran inderessiert sebst denen die gezielt suchen zu verraten wer ihre Ausstellungsgebaeude erbaut hat.

4 comments so far...

Fizgig June 16, 2018, 09:30 AM

Not a nice looking building at all... The life size vulture is neat, though. Great capture of the shadow it casts, too =)

Sonja June 16, 2018, 10:18 AM

Nothing against cute little swiss chalets as far as expanding villages and individual private houses in the mountains go, but this is a national park centre and museum. There is IMO nothing worse than tacky attempts to build a cute swiss chalet that got more than two floors and an obscene width to match it. All those awful hotels with rows and rows of tiny wooden balconies with busy lizzy filled boxes and each sporting just the same umbrella below a never ending slanted roof. Compared to this eyesores it is beautiful enough, a homogenous apperance with some sort of upward slant like on true rock walls the waterfalls, coloured like the rugged mountains all around and with the wooden texture of the formwerk imprinted also vaguely recalling a haybarn -- of course a barn the size a little mouse would experiance it -- LOL

Fizgig June 16, 2018, 05:17 PM

To each their own, I guess.... As a Swiss citizen, I find the Swiss chalets and hotels with their famous flower boxes very beautiful --- as do most people... Nothing tacky about maintaining the cultural style of building while still being modern enough for people to want to stay there and do so in relative comfort. I would hate to see this type of monstrosity in my beloved Alps [in person]. As a nature center, especially, they should have put more thought into the environmental impact & sustainability of such an inefficient structure. And those little "barns" or houses on the hillsides were never meant to be part of the scenic draw -- they were built to serve as storm shelters OR seasonal shelters for shepherds.... Some of whom would spend all summer and well into autumn up in the mountains with flocks. This isn't just an Alps phenomenon either --- you'll find similar shelters all over the place in Europe's mountain regions. They're a charming remnant of a lifestyle that is falling out of favor and will, likely, disappear altogether in the not-too-distant future. And many a hiker unexpectedly caught out in the elements owes their life to one of those little hillside shelters, too. Yeah, now they rent them out to tourists, but its better than letting them fall apart and disappear altogether..... And it really is an amazing experience to spend time in one of those rustic little things on the side of a mountain. No five star hotel can beat it -- especially for those who want more than the general tourist experience.

But, then, as one whose main home is in part of NYC.... I can say without hesitation that what millions of tourists and resident alike find so awesome about Manhattan, I, for the most part, can't stand... hehe...

I guess it [often] depends on what lens you see these things through -- tourist v resident.... And then there are things that are just beautiful that someone somewhere will find reason to dislike, too. So, yeah, to each their own ;)

Sonja June 18, 2018, 12:05 PM

There are a lot worse looking modern buildings IMO, shiney and reflecting all over or an indecisively structured deliberate hodgepodge of forms or even both at once. I guess I just am partial to some horizontal and vertical structure (with a tick more of the second), soft colours not hurting the eye, some vague achsial symetry where it is possible, but never counteracting function. Coincidental this often occurres in classical architecture, but I can also forgive the moderne a lot of shortcomings if it sticks to a few esthetic rules as old as civilisation.

It is also a matter of size. Big houses just call for different architecture than smal ones. I think the huge chalets are extremely depressing, and I do not mean B&Bs with a modern standard height of ceiling, a central heating, wellness anex and a discrete second row of rooms in the attic space, but the huge ski arena party tourist highrise cabins with the jodelkaraoke disco in the basement and the stripmall with all the stores for alpine merchanise knick-knacks, vacumed hard cheese, gentian cordial and the other expected products filling the ground floor. That is not some form of cultural preservation it is IMO the opposite. Just milking the last drop out of tourism whilst loosing any real regional culture that develops as time passes, while they create some strange always happy Somewherealps where Sissy, Franz Josef, LudwigII, Oetzi, Heidi, Wilhelm Tell and the Geierwally dance forver together with the Mozarts and the Trapp Family around the same maipole. This kind of cultural style of the Homo wolpertingerensis, are you really sure any permanent resident needs it, no matter if they live in Swizzerland, Austria, Germany or Italy? The hotel investors are the only ones that have any advantage from the McSkiholiday themepark.

BTW most of the cutiefied alpine tourist structures use sure more concrete than they let on at first glance, just masking it all to look a tad homey and oldfashioned for the idyll marketing.
But concrete in the alps has just as much tradition as wooden boards, shingles and rocks, and especially so in the Martell Valley, with it's structure remnants from the Ortler front. Of course that is no happy story of idealized content herders and dairy maids, but it is a part of the local identity. It does not mean of course that it would be great if all new buildings would recall 20th century forts and bunkers blending into the landscape for being less of an obvious target, but if a building has a purpose that calls for several levels of exhibition space with controllable lighting that couuld never blend into the village anyway, why not use the concept?

Okay, concrete is not as durable as it was thought once and one day this might be found beyond renovation and probaply worse to remove and recycle than a wooden structure but until then it will do it's job -- just like the base of all the newer individual family cabins to rent that all start on concrete -- a primitive form of Opus caementicium, the cheap panacea to ground not all level and in difficult space the romans already used for cheating nature and build just anywhere they pleased. Of course, since we are to many now for earth to support propperly, it's a bit of a problem, but I feel the problem is not the odd representative national park interpretive center in a river valley, it's the many basement garages and ceilings/floors between the storeys of appartment blocks everywhere concealed by facades of plastered or glazed bricks and wood suggesting a sort of green and harmless lifestyle possible for everyone as long the economy expands.