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The Project
What is really important to a society, its essence as it were, is characterized by a city’s most prominent buildings. In the past, palaces and cathedrals served as symbols of power, while universities signaled the concentration of knowledge, and magnificent squares stood for major trading centers. Today, media cities are marked by radio towers, financial centers by bank towers and civil service centers by administrative towers. Hence, modern society has undoubtedly gained in storeys and financial power. But it may well have lost when it comes to inner spiritual and non-materialistic values.
Graz’s most prominent building is its clock tower on the Schlossberg, the “Castle Mount.” Does this indicate that time runs at a different pace in Graz? Or that the people here are better prepared to recognize the mood of the times? In any case, it offers the opportunity to make a symbolic gesture.
The process of contemplating past, present and future factors – of conceiving a desirable future – will serve as a basis for gradually singling out the essence of all the qualities desired. We will then, step by step, relate them to one another and to the place itself so as to define a space of opportunities for the Reininghaus. In the first instance, this space will offer the degree of security and orientation that is so often missing in the era of post-modern arbitrariness. And at the same time, it will provide the creative free scope to configure our own lives – that free space we are no longer prepared to do without.
In other words, we offer a frame for the images that people and companies have in mind when it comes to forms of living, working and learning that can be turned into reality in Reininghaus. We also provide the material and spiritual essence to lend the project the strong identity that individuals need in order to feel part of a larger whole.
We provide guidance and orientation to those who are concerned with the lines, densities and building heights without which, in spite of everything, a district cannot come into being and exist.
And although we may not yet know the exact outcome of our efforts, we do know precisely what we do not want: the indifference, imprecision and superficiality that create all the disappointing experiences with places where we spend large parts of our lives, but which we would really rather avoid.
In the end, it’s very simple. If, in a few years’ time, there are people who would like to live and work here, we will know that we have embarked on the right course in our quest for quality.
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