Stadthäuser. Ein Segment von Eisenerz als Möglichkeitsraum
Materialien zu Schwerpunkten des Instituts für Gebäudelehre
Alexandra Isele
Graz: Publishing Company of Graz University of Technology, 2013
German, 270 pages, paperback
ISBN 978-3-85125-285-9
EUR 49.00

The mining city of Eisenerz in Upper Styria sparks a gamut of questions usually reduced to the topic of shrinkage in this Austrian municipality that has been most strongly impacted by this situation. Not until the negative coverage has been dissolved can these questions also be viewed as a basal search for identities and characteristic features. The author invokes the Kastenhäuser (box houses) as a building structure in Eisenerz of urban-planning and historical significance. She goes on to analyze, evaluate, and narratively develop this form further: structural interventions are varied by way of adaptations to the living and working conditions of their potential inhabitants and are illustrated in scenarios as multifaceted opportunities for both the individual and the collective appropriation of spatial resources. The thesis employs personal involvement, interviews, detailed illustrations, and high-quality image and visual material to broadly communicate the author’s vision. Moreover, the book’s structure, thematic development, and selected references attest to its political relevance and demands on society in the current context of profound processes of regional structural transformation.

This thesis was written by Alexandra Isele with advising by Andreas Lechner in the Institute of Architectural Typologies. It was published with the support of the Office of the Regional Government of Styria, Department 16 (Transport and Building Construction).