Bruck/Glocknerstraße, Salzburg, 2003

Invited competition:
Rural college of domestic science (girls’ school/boarding school), 2003
Bruck/Glocknerstraße, Salzburg

Maria Hahnenkamp transformed the entrance area of the college of domestic science into a space that is clearly structured in terms of architecture and content, transferring it on to a symbolic level addressing the function of the place itself, a girls’ school for domestic service professions.

The formally compelling combination of all-over wall decorations with ornament and text, their colours, red and pink, corresponding to the existing terrazzo floor, gives rise to a space in which the subject of “woman”, the traditional occupational profile of women, is inscribed. Both the text and the ornament covering the walls are intentionally applied in the form of excerpts. They are neither didactic nor restrictive. Instead they open up a zone for thinking and communication in this architecturally important area connecting inside and out, between work space and private sphere. The text excerpts, referring to questions and problems specific to women, and the ornamental lines rendered abstract, taken from 19th-century books of patterns, form “imaginary connecting lines between levels of content and time”.

Silvia Eiblmayr

Silvia Eiblmayr – Phd. in Kunstgeschichte, Kuratorin; lebt und arbeitet in Wien. 1998–2008 Leiterin der Galerie im Taxispalais in Innsbruck, 1993-1995 Direktorin des Salzburger Kunstvereins. Zahlreiche Gastprofessuren und Lehraufträge im In- und Ausland. Autorin und Herausgeberin zahlreicher Texte und Publikationen. Als Buch ist erschienen: „Die Frau als Bild“ – der weibliche Körper in der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts (1993/2003).

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