New Museum for Neuhaus Liaunig

Liaunig Museum, designed by the Austrian Querkraft is a projected volume out atop a prominent hill in Neuhaus, which controls the view, while it settles into the landscape as a perfect example of intervention in nature. Perched atop a hillside location, the design of the new museum emerges as a work of Landart, where one part of it is visible. Sectioning the hill, the main body of the building is cut with a wooded embankment, providing a spectacular view of the river Drau, located 70 meters below the museum. The building stands on a cantilever 30 meters away from the steep terrain on the steep side of the access road, being clearly visible to visitors approaching the museum. The entrance area of the building is oriented toward the center of Neuhaus and near the historic castle, owned by the museum. Inside the museum, as the volume is close completely over the hill, the visitor travels through a corridor leading to the main exhibition hall. This underground volume offers the possibility of organizing a variety of exhibitions under flexible displays and lighting provisions. The heart of the museum, 160m in length, is the space where they perform throughout the day the exhibition, being protected by terraces at each end. This area of 13m wide by 7m high, is organized by mobile display panels and covered by a curved translucent skin, industrial element that allows the passage of daylight into the room. The room is devoid of natural light cone is display room intended for the collection of graphic art, enclosed by the main hall facing the entrance to the museum. At the end of the graphic collection room opens to the view visitors a peaceful, but fascinating landscape of hills Neuhaus. The gold collection is a separate chamber, but in turn connected through a corridor that accompanies the installation path of the artist Brigitte Kowanz to the underground library. The high cost of the outer coating prevents the majority of the volume sink beneath the earth. Rather than removing the soil, the excavated soil was reused to remodel the site. Industrial materials like concrete, glass and sheet metal dominate the visible part of the building. Located on the hill, the building benefits from a temperate environment. A geothermal heat pump uses the constant temperature of the earth.