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Archive for Building.Art.History

The Archive for Bau.Kunst.Geschichte is an interdepartmental institution that resulted from the merger of the Archive forBuilding Art, founded in 2005, with collections of the Department of Art History and is located in the former Adambräu building.

Holdings and new acquisitions are made available to the public in exhibitions and publications, conferences and lectures and are also made accessible to international research. Research projects are also carried out in connection with the Faculty of Architecture and the Faculty of Philosophy and History and with the participation of the students. This is intended to make a significant contribution to the preservation of the cultural heritage and the promotion of research.

The collection includes architects' estates, individual projects, company archives, photo collections, publications, models and similar materials. One focus of the collection is classical modernism. With the architecture of the twenties and thirties, the central Alpine region has shown an independent development: In the field of tension between the international "White Modernism" and the regional architectural scene, a specific Tyrolean architecture of extraordinary quality and diversity emerged, whose powerful, unmistakable formal language attracted attention throughout Europe. It is astonishing that of the many important architects, only Lois Welzenbacher and Clemens Holzmeister are still internationally known today. This "forgotten modernity" will be successively reappraised in the coming years. With its combination of architecture and engineering, the new archive is an exception among the existing European institutions. 

The archive's art historical collections include works by the painter, graphic artist and art historian Paul von Rittinger, the estate of Hans Semper, the son of the famous architect and art theorist Gottfried Semper and the first full professor of art history at the University of Innsbruck, the institute's original teaching materials collection consisting of around 10. 000 photographs and 5,000 prints, as well as works and documents by the painter and graphic artist Lois Hechenblaikner, the painter Franz Schwetz, the architect Hans Fritz and the painter Franz Lettner, and many others.