Graz seized its nomination as the 2003 cultural capital of Europe in order to realize buildings planned long ago. Two large events halls, a house for literature, a children’s museum and a floating theatre next to the new Kunsthaus serve as architectural attractions designed to give the city a new impetus.

The Kunsthaus Graz can be regarded as Peter Cook’s first real building. As one of the founders of Archigram, he became well-known in the 1960s for utopian ideas such as Plug-in City and Instant City. In his description of the Kunsthaus Graz, he still refers to the whimsical experiments of that time. For Cook, the Kunsthaus Graz as ‘friendly alien’ is an exhibition machine and a mysterious place where the unpredictable can be discovered: ‘The ‘friendly alien’ swallows everything with its travelator. It is like a giant vacuum cleaner, like the belly of the whale, evoking distant memory and unconscious desires that we have, since childhood, (…)'(1) In order to realize this project, Cook and Fournier entered into a partnership with the local architectural office Architektur Consult.(2) One of the founders of this office, Günther Domenig, was part of the Grazer Schule in the 1960s, which agitated against the existing architectural creeds. At that time, they caused a stir by being even more vehement than the Vienna movement, in which Hans Hollein, Haus-Rucker-Co and Coop Himmelb(l)au, among others, were active.(3) Moreover, they were able to put their radical ideas into practice. Through cultural events such as Forum Stadtpark and the Steirische Herbst, this eventually gave rise to the avant-garde myth of Graz. Nor is it coincidental that Architektur Consult was chosen as the local partner.

The prehistory of the Kunsthaus Graz shows that the political tussle surrounding the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam is not unique; the creation of a cultural icon requires a great deal of effort. The idea for this new art building is more than 14 years old, and both the programme and the location were changed repeatedly. The first competition was held in 1989. Like the Trigon exhibitions in the 1960s, it was intended that the Kunsthaus should direct its activities towards strengthening cultural ties between Austria, Italy and the former Yugoslavia.(4) This exercise finally produced the winning project, a design by Schöffauer & Tschapeller, which was developed right up until the building preparation phase but was never realized due to political rows. Following a political takeover in 1997, a new competition was organized, and the location shifted from the Pfauengarten of the old city walls to the Schlossberg in the centre. Cook and Fournier took part in this competition. They proposed an organic object with a biomorphic skin, which emerged from a hole in the mountain like a tongue, pointing towards the city. This was, however, not the winning design,(5) and moreover, a referendum put paid to the project because the intervention was deemed to despoil the landscape.

Graz’s designation as cultural capital of Europe in 2003 was the motivation for organizing a competition once again. Because of the international character, this time it was important that the competition should produce a name architect in order to attract an international public to the city. Like the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Tate Modern in London – all three successful examples of city branding – the Kunsthaus was intended to function as a magnet for the dynamism of the city of Graz. Following a detailed study, the location was eventually moved to a strategic site on the west bank of the River Mur. In relation to the Baroque centre, this is a neglected area, and the new museum should give it a boost.

At the same time, this intervention gives rise to a new urbanistic axis, which connects a series of existing cultural institutions. The new Kunsthaus thereby anchors itself in the existing urban fabric. The scheme by Cook/Fournier fits the bill here, too. Despite the contrast of the architectural formal idiom, the object slots into its surroundings in a remarkably natural way. The building truly acts as a bridge between old and new, tradition and ‘avant-garde’.

A requirement for the design for the Kunsthaus was that an adjacent monument had to be integrated in the scheme. Cook and Fournier have linked this building – the Eiserne Haus of 1847, with one of the oldest cast-iron constructions in Central Europe – to the friendly alien on two levels. A face-lift has given the existing elevation a new aura. On the other hand, for technical reasons and because of the pressure of time and a tight budget, the working up of the design and the details of the new construction have been done too hastily. In the scheme for the competition in 2000, the organic elevation was presented as a translucent membrane. This would give passers-by an idea of what takes place inside a ‘floating and translucent’ building. The closed blue glazed elevation which has ultimately been realized offers few opportunities for such a poetic quality. A solid plinth zone now leads the passer-by past a café with a view of the travelator, the moving walkway, which bisects the space and leads to the two exhibition levels. The 900m2 media façade itself appears to be designed to compensate for the elevation’s unrealized purpose. It was supposed to ‘radiate outwards in the dark’ like an ‘intelligent soft skin’. Now bureau realities: united has used some 900 circular neon lamps which function as pixels and are available for individual artisitic expression as image, text and abstract film sequences via a central computer.(6) A low resolution screen for the public urban space. When the lights are switched off, the dark colour of the more than a thousand acrylic glass panels takes over: transparency has made way for a hermetically sealed autonomous object. The alien has landed only to get stuck between the old buildings.

The English designations for the surface areas reveals Graz’s ambition to become integrated in an international art circuit: the exhibition spaces ‘space 01’, ‘space 02’ and ‘space 03’, which are bisected by the ‘pin’ (the moving walkway), the ‘needle’, a projecting glazed panorama platform situated at a height of 16 metres, which functions as an urban terrace and rentable ‘event space’ and which affords a view of the exterior skin of the bubble itself, the Eiserne Haus and the surrounding Baroque districts. The sixteen snout-like light openings in the construction which spans 60 metres allow only one stage-managed view of the city centre, with the Schlossberg as a cutout. A superb view, incidentally. The other 15 nozzles point northwards and let in very little light. Extra spiral-shaped neon lights must now fulfil the original function of the skylights. As a dark hole, the artificially illuminated exhibition space calls to mind the competition design by Cook and Fournier for the Schlossberg rather than the current building plan. The architects’ visionary departure point is now: ‘Up into the Unknown’. The finish of grey metal panels limits the possible uses for the exhibition space. The so-called white cube has now become a ‘black box with hidden possibilities’, according to Peter Cook.

Like the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, the Kunsthaus Graz functions as a multifunctional exhibition and events space for contemporary art, new media and photography, with no depot or permanent collection of its own. It has been conceived as an independent entity under the supervision of the national museum Joanneum, a cultural institute with a rich tradition in the Austrian region of Stiermarken. One of the users of the venerable Eiserne Haus is Camera Austria, an artists’ initiative of 1975, famous for the photography magazine of the same name. As co-curator, it is responsible for programming photographic exhibitions in the Kunsthaus Graz. Another user is the MedienKunstlabor, which has started with the two-year project ‘Data Spind’, an open laboratory for local and international net-activists. Other cultural institutes such as the Haus der Architektur and the Kunstverein Graz are expected to become associated with the Kunsthaus. Negotiations for this are still ongoing. A collective media policy is intended to enhance Graz’s image and that of its cultural institutions. An offensive which is also designed to help upgrade the Gries area of the city, not only by improving its image, but also by boosting the economy and bettering the social situation: the power of culture and creativity as a new means of giving the city a shot in the arm, of relieving the centre and of bringing the public to other districts. Retailers are already eagerly looking forward to this.

Taking its cue from the earlier Trigon exhibitions, in the summer of 2005 a supraregional biennale is to take place in the Kunsthaus Graz. At the same time, thus, as the Venice Biennale and the Graphic Art Biennale in Ljubljana. It remains to be seen whether the investments made really will produce the desired results. At any rate, the buildings have got people talking, and with the construction of the Kunsthaus Graz an attempt has been made to put the city back on the cultural map of Europe.

(1) Text by Colin Fournier for the publication of the Kunsthaus book.
(2) A partnership since 1998 between the architects Herfried Peyker, Günther Domenig and Hermann Eisenköck. .
(3) See: Günther Feuerstein, Visionäre Architektur, Wien, 1990.
(4) The idea for the Trigon exhibitions was conceived in the 1960s by the politician and professor of ethnology Hanns Koren. This idea is becoming increasingly topical due to the expansion of the EU eastwards. As a former ‘gateway to the Balkans’, Graz is once again at the centre of Europe due to the fall of the Iron Curtain.
(5) The Swiss architect Jürg Weber won the competition for the museum in the Schlossberg (1998).
(6) Compare the project with the KPN tower in Rotterdam by Osram Sylvania. This elevation works in a similar way but is more impressive as regards size, colour and choice of lights. Moreover, the view of the elevation of the Kunsthaus Graz is interrupted by a number of trees, and the spectacle of films, texts and animations is difficult to follow partly because the elevation is curved.
(7) A publication is planned which will document the processes surrounding the Kunsthaus Graz, with texts by Dieter Bogner, Christine Frisinghelli, Peter Cook/Colin Fournier, Cedric Price and others.

Karin Christof is a curator, artist and architectural theorist in Amsterdam and Vienna.