Adaptable Spaces: Medienhaus Kapitelsaal

year: 2020 | typology: mixed use | status: completed

Lechner & Lechner / Architektin Christine Lechner / Büro in der Priesterhausgasse 18, Salzburg / Architektur Salzburg / Medienhaus Kapitelsaal / Festungsgasse

@ Julian Höck

The Medienhaus Kapitelsaal is located in the historical center of the city of Salzburg. The starting point for the intervention was an event hall that was no longer state of the art and was to be adapted into a multifunctional media house. The approach was to leave as much of the historic building as possible from the 1970s by the architect Prossinger and to design the intervention in the historic alleys as carefully as possible. Despite this, the newly created media house looks inviting and transparent in its external appearance. The media house can be entered from two sides.

The intermediate ceiling of the existing hall was removed in order to be able to add another floor. This floor was realized in the form of suspended platforms. These are suspended from the existing concrete beams on tie rods and the concrete slab itself is exposed. The air spaces between the platforms, which are used as offices, allow views into the newly created multifunctional hall. In the offices, you can keep an overview of what's going on in the divisible hall. At the same time, the hall gets a game with different room heights and visual relationships.

Lechner & Lechner / Christine Lechner / Büro in der Priesterhausgasse 18, Salzburg / Architektur Salzburg / Medienhaus Kapitelsaal

The mobile partition wall allows the hall to be used for several purposes at the same time. One side is occasionally used for meetings and the other for events including a stage. The mobile stage in combination with the mobile partition allows flexible use of the two areas. The existing foyer was extended to the break room with an additional escape route in the event of a fire.

Care was again taken to preserve the terrazo fields, divided by wooden floorboards, and to add a bar that has a signal effect in the hall. The large windows into the alley in combination with the two large double doors allow generous opening into the alley and make the chapter house accessible in many ways. At the same time, other windows allow views of the historical building context.

Lechner & Lechner / Christine Lechner / Büro in der Priesterhausgasse 18, Salzburg / Architektur Salzburg / Medienhaus Kapitelsaal / Architekten in der Salzburger Altstadt

The materiality in the hall follows a course. The office floor has raw surfaces based on the existing concrete ceiling made of planks. The iron drawbars are shown open. Raw metal surfaces and wood wool acoustic panels are used as visible sound absorbers. The floor in the office is designed in the form of a carpet. The platforms themselves

are made of cross-laminated timber panels, which are placed on suspended I-beams. These ceiling surfaces to the hall are shown on sight and the floor in the hall itself is an oak parquet floor, which flows into terrazo fields in the foyer. Despite the size of the hall, the goal is to create a living room atmosphere and a high quality of stay.

The multifunctional room is complemented by a spacious foyer. The formal link between the hall and the foyer is flowing. The floor merges into the wooden floorboards, creating an atmospheric connection. The copper counter creates a spatial conclusion and a promising destination for the break.

The foyer is functionally the break room of the offices and the hall. Here is the social meeting point of the entire complex. At the same time, this break room is the main access point to the hall. Both areas can be entered from this point when the partition wall is closed. Access from the alley is also possible.