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Versatility is a hallmark of the practice Georg Driendl established in Vienna, nearly 30 years ago. He is a master of complex geometries but the house he built for a professional couple near Purbach am Neusiedler See, a small town in southern Austria, is deceptively simple. A shoebox of concrete and steel, wood and glass, it is located on a rise in a nature reserve, with a 360-degree view over a vineyard, a forest and the Leitha Mountains. This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site where permission to build is rarely granted, but the removal of a decrepit barn left a rectangular footprint for new construction. And it helped that Driendl was restoring the Esterházy Palace, a baroque masterpiece in the same jurisdiction, which guaranteed his commitment to excellence.
The clients are a noted scientist who heads a research institute in Vienna and his wife, a musician who grew up in this region and teaches nearby. They have an apartment in the city but wanted to immerse themselves in nature and asked their architect to give them as much space as possible within the permissible limits. Driendl created a 6 m-high single volume, measuring 10x17 m: a loft that offers the owners an enviable freedom of movement and draws in the landscape through floor-to-ceiling glazing. To shade and insulate the glass, sliding shutters of spruce are suspended from tracks on the long east and west sides. These are manually operated, allowing the owners to change the degree of openness according to weather and season. The north façade is protected and shades a terrace for use in summer, but the fully glazed south façade is unshielded, allowing sunlight to penetrate deep inside and warm the interior in winter.
The materiality of the house and its elemental forms play off the beauty of nature as do the best farm buildings. Five slender steel columns support a ring beam, and they are pulled back from two corners to allow an unbroken view out through glass...
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