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Michael Zinganel :
Provincial Hospital in Grimmenstein

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Ended
Grimmenstein, 1996 – 1997

Information

The architect and artist declined to design an artistic contribution to a building that did not accord with what he imagined, and decided to make an intervention in the building itself by rendering the different functional zones of the building visible in the façade design.

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A certain opposition to contributing an artwork to a building that did not correspond to his ideas prompted Michael Zinganel to actively intervence in the building itself. A contract for architectural consulting enabled him to implement various improvements, but he was bound by budgetary restrictions and other compromises. "After painfully weighing the technical, economical and schedule-related constraints with the personal ambitions and preferences of everyone involved, a considerable number of compromise solutions were carried out. While these were improvements, they did not correspond to my artistic expectations enough that I could legetimate that they were created by me." (Michael Zinganel)
Zinganel's intention was to make the outside of the building more streamlined, while "deactivating" (M.Z.) the historicizing appearance. The fact that planning was already at an advanced stage also posed a constraint for him: "Ma proposals are thus limited to revealing the functional areas hidden by the facade yet still clearly delineated: the base as an internal technical supply area, the ground floor with its main entrance on the slope side as a public zone and treatment area, the 3 U-shaped upper floors as bed wing as well as the heating and air conditioning under the roof." (Michael Zinganel).
(Susanne Neuburger)

Architect: NÖ Bauabteilung (Friedrich Siebert)