Parkquartier. Hotel & Ice Rink

Under the tutorship of Umberto Napolitano and Maxime Enrico of LAN Paris (Local Architects Network), this project developed with the aim of understanding and capturing the essence of Viennese urbanity within the redevelopment of one of the most iconic modernist structures the city has to offer: the Intercontinental Hotel. This began with an urban analysis of public space, networks, city blocks, buildings and the architectural language spoken by the city, all in an effort to better understand the key characteristics of the space we were to reshape.

The major task lay in the documentation of existing parks, squares and other areas of communal activity and, by establishing a basic typological survey, sought to define them by their historical, geographical and compositional values in order for that knowledge to be applied to the site.

Based on a volumetric, rationalist approach, the proposal focuses on the space in between, and tries to confront the monumentality of an historic building through means of preservation and continuation, in order to redefine the existing.