GAM: What originally inspired you to study architecture? 

HG: This path was clear to me relatively early on, because at school — and this is going to sound clichéd — I was crazy about drawing and spent a lot of time doing it, and also because I was really good at geometric representation. This led me to discover that I had a strong sense of spatial awareness. When I was young, the church of Domenig/Huth in Oberwart already impressed me; at the time, I was just ten years old and walked to church with my parents every Sunday. Experiencing this church interior on a regular basis, with its different climatic relations and lighting, had a lasting effect on me. Another point of contact was Haus Dellacher by Raimund Abraham. My grandfather, who was a cabinetmaker, restored furniture for Max Dellacher, which is how I came into contact with the house. 

GAM: And when did the decision fall to pursue a career at Graz University of Technology? 

HG: Due to the many years spent in the drawing studio, I always felt a strong connection to the university. This connection endured even after I finished my studies; for instance, while self-employed as an architect, I accepted an assignment teaching design under Günther Domenig, or I spent a year at the Institut für Baukunst on an interim basis. However, the initiative always came from the university, since, having founded a young architectural firm, I had launched a few small projects that apparently were of interest. At any rate, it was not a conscious, strategic decision, but instead arose from a fundamental willingness to work collaboratively at the university. And when the chance presented itself, I jumped on it. 

GAM: From 2008 to 2023 you assumed the function of Dean of Studies at the Faculty of Architecture. If you compare your own study of architecture with the study program in place today, what has changed? 

HG: Back then, the general framework was totally different. When I think back on my years studying architecture, at the time I was hardly aware of the organization situation or the administration. There was an office of student services where we had to go. A dean’s office like we have today did not exist at the time. There was a curriculum that we read through, but then at a certain point, starting around the third or fourth semester, we started to ignore it. In the drawing studio, we taught ourselves so much, because we were only interested in designing. The specialist knowledge was limited to construction, statics, and architectural history, and on a certain level this made studying very easy. In terms of corrections, only those by Peter Hellweger still remain in my mind today; he was part of the first generation of Günther Domenig’s assistants and absolutely one of the brightest minds. However, practically speaking, the actual work on a project or a design took place only in the drawing studio. One had to earn the recognition of the collective again and again, and sometimes the grade given by a professor wasn’t important at all. Since contributions by others always played a role, it was not one’s own work alone being assessed. Later, when self-employed, this was of benefit: when creating a design, the idea is always to explore influences and to let oneself be inspired, while still retaining control of the process oneself. Back then, processuality — a term we often mention today — was something that was taken for granted, yet without being named. In those days, we lived in the drawing studios; I arrived early in the morning and stayed until midnight, and that lasted for many years. At the time, the faculty was small, without very many students. Today, a certain basic structure is necessary, since the students no longer have the amount of time we did back then. This is, I believe, the key difference. 

GAM: What has changed in terms of content? 

HG: Today there are lots of topics beyond design that the students are confronted with, though their necessity is subject to debate. In my opinion, architecture school is about design work. Everything else can be (re)learned afterward. At a later date, I can teach myself every law, every formula, and even decide myself whether I need to learn it or not. Design — that is, the basic understanding of how to design, along with the necessary methods — can only be learned at the university. After one’s studies are over, there is neither time nor opportunity for this. That’s why I ever remain an advocate of focusing on design, because if you don’t learn it here, you won’t learn it anywhere. And design is what the job is all about. 

GAM: What achievements over the course of your career are you especially proud of? 

HG: Considering what we as a design institute used to be doing and where we are today, I am very pleased with the development. This comes from how we, internally, continually talk about what works and what doesn’t (or didn’t). Ultimately, the students should be gaining knowledge. We select our topics very consciously, and the biggest success was the fragmentation of the design process. 

GAM: What does that mean exactly?

HG: In the past, we tried to teach the design process in a way that reflected how the working process goes. Meaning that we took a plot of land, a programmatic objective that we discussed, then the urban-planning dimension, followed by the facade, et cetera. This actually led to the unsatisfactory result that decisions about the facade were justified with decisions about the floor plan, and everything was seen as a consequence of the previous decisions. But this is disastrous because the focus is always on using one’s own decisions as arguments. It is for this reason that we now take a different approach, developing the facade first — when working on a town house, for example. Or we say: Start out by imagining a mood and then develop this mood further. Or we ask: How is atmosphere created? This helps students learn how to think about topics independently and how to define goals that go beyond the program itself. It is more important to have information about the appearance of materials or color than to be able to successfully address the issue of connecting sealing sheets. Because the problem is that when I start working on the floor plan, then I think that after I get the floor plan down, I’ve got my project nailed. No, I haven’t. So this is why we actually focus on other topics before the floor plan, such as materialization, vertical access, or the entryway situation. And this fragmentation has become amazingly well established. The students design more freely and develop their concepts independently of specific programmatic ideas. This is evident in the quality of the designs, which is something I’m really proud of. Also, we were always lucky in that we brought renowned architects on board, just before they became really well known. One of the first was Christian Inderbitzin from EMI, or Markus Penell from Ortner & Ortner Baukunst, TEd’A arquitectes, or the interior designer Hannes Peer. He, for example, imparted mood themes through film sequences. 

GAM: What advice would you like to give architecture students for their future? 

HG: Take your time. I believe that it is very important to take your time and to be carefree. Still today there is plenty of freedom that students can consciously embrace while in school, though it is not handed to them on a silver platter. Wanting to become a good designer is crucial. That is the unique proposition. 

GAM: What distinguishes a good designer?

HG: Recognizing personal and societal needs, for these aspects are not readily apparent. Though it may be easy to see the headlines, it is the subliminal that determines a sense of space, and one has to feel this. Developing this sensitivity is vital for design work. Designing is of course always an extreme succession of decision processes, and one must develop one’s own set of tools for it. This also means knowing and evaluating all parameters that will influence the design process. And then I need an incredible shelf of possibilities. This I can only achieve by going beyond my interest in architecture and architectural history to instead understand what is happening at a particular site, or has in the past, and also, ideally, to see a lot of examples with my own eyes for a broader base of reference. It is important to add to this shelf of architectural history those things that touch us personally. In an ideal case, one’s own language will evolve. Those who succeed in focusing on this have a chance to become a good designer. Often it does take three, four, five, six designs, though, before one has tapped into and understood a certain topic. And of course one always has to be open to new topics as well. 

GAM: Which topics or things will you be focusing on in the near future? 

HG: I will keep working at my firm, but I’ll step back from certain thematic areas, and actually I have done so already. In our office, we design quite a few private homes and I have always drawn the designs myself using a pencil. I draw solely with a pencil, but this is of course only feasible during the design phase up to a certain project size. This means that I do the initial design and then pass it along. Later, I delve back into the project, especially when it comes time to decide on details or discuss the interior. We try to cover everything when designing a house, including ideas related to the furnishings. There is still a lot to achieve here in this last phase of my career. After all, we are designing living spaces. 

GAM: Thank you for the conversation.

Translation: Dawn Michelle d’Atri