Layers of Light

architects Lichtbau.Wagner architekten
project The Parish Centre, Podersdorf, Austria
written by Vera Grimmer

 

Atmosphere seems to begin where construction stops. It surrounds the structure; it is pressed into its matter. The atmosphere seems to radiate from the structure. 
The atmosphere of a building emanates from its physical form. In a stationary structure, the senses detect the emission of sound, light, warmth, smell and humidity, the turbulent effects that cannot be touched.  To construct a structure means to create such an atmosphere.
Mark Wigley      

 

Walking along the main street of Podersdorf, a town situated on Neusiedler Lake in Burgenland County, one is suddenly dazzled by a shimmering, transparent glass wall covered with gold lettering. Behind this urban screen wall one glimpses the structure of the new parish centre that radiates an atmosphere quite unlike anything in its surroundings. It is an atmosphere of airiness and transparency that breathes with a poetically interpreted humanity.