Magic Mountain: Salzburg Development Connects Residents to Nature

by Mary Pepchinski
Architectural Record, Oct 1, 2015

(Image: For their site below the rock face of the defunct quarry, Hariri & Hariri Architecture designed six faceted housing blocks containing 100 apartments. Courtesy of Architectural Record, photo by Bryan Reinhart)

An abandoned sandstone quarry on Rainberg Mountain, above the historic city of Salzburg, Austria, is hardly the place one would expect to find a desirable urban neighborhood. But, nevertheless, that’s where developer Asset One decided to build 100 units of housing.

When New York–based architects Gisue and Mojgan Hariri first visited in 2006 in response to an invited competition, they found the site “derelict and magical.” Known as the Sternbrauerei, the quarter was dominated by the quarry’s soaring rock face to the west but also contained a defunct landmarked brewery and its storage vaults. Nineteenth-century villas and more recent low-rise apartment buildings border the northern edge, while a forest rises to the south. Read more…