This three-storey volume looks like an outdoor area, open to the sky and the earth. However, the pleasant temperature and soft acoustics emphasise the fact that the space is enclosed by a light glass roof and a foot-warm rammed earth floor. The façades of the adjoining wings of the building have been carefully restored, the original window arrangements restored and the rare Romanesque brickwork of the nave uncovered. The weathered figure of Christ from 1770 now appears to emerge from the rough quarry stones.

In coordination with the whitewashed walls, the ochre-coloured clay floor on the entire ground floor flows over the different levels of the historical epochs and also solves the problem of moisture, as drainage against the slope water was not possible for reasons of monument protection. On the two residential floors above, light-coloured, rough-sawn ash wood lends the baroque corridors a cheerful warmth and pleasant fragrance. The room doors were carefully placed in front of the historic walls in order to protect the valuable existing building.

On the first floor, careful renovation has preserved the monastery library with its valuable writings, while on the floor above, the Renaissance panelling of the prelature has been carefully restored and supplemented using traditional craftsmanship and state-of-the-art laser technology. The Capitulum, decorated with frescoes by Ferdinand Gehr, as a representative meeting place of the monastery, was developed into a seminar room with the best technical equipment. Its historic beams were uncovered and extensively renovated, even though the new roof is now supporting them.

The central themes of the complex building project are the extensive dismantling of the interventions, the careful preservation and recycling of materials and the implementation of ecological criteria, in keeping with the spirit of the Großes Walsertal Biosphere Reserve, in which the Probstei is embedded.

Here is the link to the interview [language: German] Link