Rusty steel tower over Roman ruins by Marte.Marte Architects

This rusty metal tower was designed by Austrian studio Marte.Marte Architects to help tourists locate excavated Roman ruins on the outskirts of a town in western Austria (+ slideshow).

Rusty steel tower by Marte.Marte Architects frames Roman ruins in Austria

Stefan Marte of Marte.Marte Architects created the structure between the remains of two Roman villas at the location of an ancient traffic intersection in Brederis. Few traces of the original buildings remain, so the new installation provides the only landmark above ground level.

Rusty steel tower by Marte.Marte Architects frames Roman ruins in Austria

“The tower-like sculpture is designed to make the excavation site visible for miles around,” Marte told Dezeen.

Rusty steel tower by Marte.Marte Architects frames Roman ruins in Austria

Primarily constructed from Corten steel, the ten-metre tower has a glazed lower section that exposes a hollow centre, allowing visitors to look down to the underground remains.

Rusty steel tower by Marte.Marte Architects frames Roman ruins in Austria

“The tower acts like a magnifying glass, offering an insight into history,” said the architect, whose previous projects include a holiday home with roughly hewn concrete walls and a twisted concrete bridge.

Rusty steel tower by Marte.Marte Architects frames Roman ruins in Austria

A platform extends from one side of the structure to create a standing area, while an adjacent wall displays replicas of Roman objects. Both were also constructed from pre-weathered steel that has been riveted together.

Rusty steel tower by Marte.Marte Architects frames Roman ruins in Austria

“Corten steel was chosen for its naturalness and purity, making it the ideal material for an expressive landmark in the vast, open landscape,” added Marte.

Rusty steel tower by Marte.Marte Architects frames Roman ruins in Austria

“The texture of the stainless steel rivets is reminiscent of the intricacy of Roman chain armour.”

Rusty steel tower by Marte.Marte Architects frames Roman ruins in Austria

Stones unearthed during the archeological dig were used to build low walls above the ancient foundations of the two villas, revealing the original locations of walls.

Rusty steel tower by Marte.Marte Architects frames Roman ruins in Austria

Photography is by Marc Lins.

Here’s a short project description from Marte.Marte Architects:


Roman Villa, Feldkirch 2008

The excavations at the roman villa in Brederis offer important insights on Roman settlement history in the Feldkirch area.

Rusty steel tower by Marte.Marte Architects frames Roman ruins in Austria

A walk-in sculpture was planted between the remnants of the foundations of two different house types. The disc-like tower and the space creating wall fragments along a trapezoid-shaped plateau stage the location in front of the collection of findings.

Rusty steel tower by Marte.Marte Architects frames Roman ruins in Austria

The use of Corten steel throughout permeates the site with an historic aura and underscores the sculpted effect of the free form that helps make the excavation site a landmark.

Floor plan of Rusty steel tower by Marte.Marte Architects frames Roman ruins in Austria
Floor plan – click for larger image

Client: City of Rankweil
Location: 6830 Rankweil-Brederis

Rusty steel tower by Marte.Marte Architects frames Roman ruins in Austria
Section – click for larger image

Architecture: Marte.Marte Architekten ZT GmbH, Weiler
Arch.DI Bernhard Marte
Arch.DI Stefan Marte
Exhibition area: 42m2

Elevations of Rusty steel tower by Marte.Marte Architects frames Roman ruins in Austria
Elevations – click for larger image

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Maiden Tower by Marte.Marte Architects

The towering fortress of fairytale character Rapunzel inspired this steel-clad house extension that accommodates the three oldest daughters of Austrian architect Stefan Marte (+ slideshow).

Maiden Tower by Marte.Marte Architects

Named Maiden Tower, the four-storey residence sits alongside the family’s existing concrete home in the Alpine district of Vorarlberg, western Austria, and is clad with oxidising steel to create a visible contrast between the new and old structures.

Maiden Tower by Marte.Marte Architects

Stefan Marte, of Marte.Marte Architects, planned the building over four storeys, allowing each daughter to have her bedroom on a different floor to her sisters.

Maiden Tower by Marte.Marte Architects

A corridor leads through to the extension from the existing house, arriving at a small library. Beyond this, the girls have their own separate kitchen and dining room.

Maiden Tower by Marte.Marte Architects

A corner staircase leads up to the bedrooms, while doors lead out to a swimming pool and terrace in the garden.

Maiden Tower by Marte.Marte Architects

Corten-steel panels clad three sides of the tower, while the east elevation features floor-to-ceiling glazing, offering views back towards the main house.

Maiden Tower by Marte.Marte Architects

Additional windows and doors are dotted across the north and south elevations and can be concealed behind hinged steel shutters.

Maiden Tower by Marte.Marte Architects

This is the third project by Marte.Marte Architects to feature on Dezeen recently, following a twisted bridge and a concrete holiday house.

Maiden Tower by Marte.Marte Architects

See more architecture by Marte.Marte Architects »
See more houses in Austria »

Maiden Tower by Marte.Marte Architects
Site plan – click for larger image

Photography is by Marc Lins.

Here’s a project description from writer Marina Hämmerle:


Maiden Tower

What could match the massive presence of Marte’s concrete home, this raw, stony material, this self‐contained unit? Oxidising steel: just as raw, just as authentic in its expression and its properties. The interior impression remains the same – wood surfaces, warm colours, fine pores. The new exterior structure, on the other hand, is masculine, striving skywards, rising up from the surrounding landscape like the neighbouring pear tree. That behind the massive exterior lies a building of lightweight materials may be inspired by the tale of the Trojan horse.

Maiden Tower by Marte.Marte Architects
Ground floor plan – click for larger image

A new space opens up between the two buildings, complemented by an in‐ground pool – uncompromising, hard, less sensible, but therefore all the more magical, idiosyncratic, and sensuous. Oxidising steel on the walls and bottom, encased like in a suit of armour. The tower also appears this way with its steel ventilation flaps to the north and south and fixed glazing to the east.

Maiden Tower by Marte.Marte Architects
First floor plan – click for larger image

Rapunzel, Rapunzel… Through the library, down a few steps into the separate kitchen, and then through the dining room, facing the pool, the little princesses can climb the newel stairs to their bedrooms. There, they are presented with a view, on the one hand, of their parents’ protective house and, on the other, the nearby scenic forest. The spatial perspective mirrors this interplay of freedom and guidance, becoming a symbol of their possibilities for development within the family.

Maiden Tower by Marte.Marte Architects
Second and third floor plan – click for larger image

The whole structure seems so sealed off, but in terms of use, it not only offers an astonishing amount of free space, but also conveys respect and draws boundaries. This makes it possible to live together in a relatively small space and at the same time provides each person with opportunities for participation and private space.

Maiden Tower by Marte.Marte Architects
Cross section – click for larger image

What an unparalleled atmosphere for the girls. If it is true that the first few years of life shape our future spatial desires, then these girls will have had a very valuable personal experience that their future Prince Charmings will probably not have had: a life in manifest appreciation.

Maiden Tower by Marte.Marte Architects
Elevations – click for larger image

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Mountain Cabin by Marte.Marte Architects

Roughly hewn concrete gives a rocky texture to the walls of this Alpine holiday home by Austrian studio Marte.Marte Architects (+ slideshow).

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects

The four-storey Mountain Cabin was constructed by Marte.Marte Architects on the side of a hillside in Laterns, Austria, and boasts far-stretching views of the surrounding mountains and forests.

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects

Two rectangular openings wrap around the rectilinear body of the house, dividing it into two and creating a sheltered outdoor terrace on the upper-middle floor. This level functions as the building’s entrance and can be accessed via a staircase at the rear.

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects

A second staircase spirals down from this floor to bedrooms and storage areas on the lower levels and up to an open-plan kitchen and living room on the uppermost floor.

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects

Smooth concrete walls and ceilings are left exposed inside the house and contrast with the rugged surface of the facade. Floors, doors and window frames are oak, as is much of the furniture.

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects

Square windows are dotted around each elevation and are the only other interruption to the clean lines of the facade.

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects

“The openings punched into the double-walled concrete shell are transformed into framed landscape paintings,” says the studio, describing the views from the windows.

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects

We’ve published a few houses in the mountains of Austria, including a boxy concrete house surrounded by sloping meadows and a cabin built from locally sourced spruce, fir and elm. See more houses in Austria.

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects

Other winter retreats we’ve featured include a snowboarding cabin in Canada and a contemporary Alpine chalet. See more winter retreats on Dezeen.

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects

Photography is by Marc Lins.

Here’s a project description from Marte.Marte Architects:


Mountain cabin in Laternser valley

At the edge of a wooded ravine, beneath the imposing wooden house of the Catholic Community of Sisters, the small tower building rises from the steep hillside.

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects

Striking and modest in appearance, it stretches up out of a small hollow situated on a narrow path along the edge of the forest.

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects

The only change made to the hillside is the driveway and the terrain has been left in its original form.

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects

Fitting into the landscape as if it were a barn, the building, which is a fine example of the homogeneous use of materials, in this case, carefully hewn rough concrete, stands out against the meadow green and winter white. Its ashy-gray colour only contrasts slightly with the heavy oak front doors and the anthracite-coloured handrails blend in with the branches of the surrounding forest. As if they were punched into the walls, the square windows of different sizes are spread out across the walls, and their full effect is only achieved at the corners.

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects

The integration of the outer surfaces requested by the client is a kind of artifice. At the entry level, which is accessible via a flight a steps, the structure narrows down to two supporting corner columns, which not only provides guests with the unique opportunity to look through the building while at the same time enjoying a panorama view of the surrounding landscape, the whole time protected from the elements, but also lends the entrance a sense of significance.

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects

Inside the column, a spiral staircase connects the living area on the upper level with the two more private areas on the lower level, where the bedrooms and relaxation areas are interlocked like a puzzle. Semantically speaking, this gesture of the tower creates archetypes of fortified structures and abstract computer figures in your mind’s eye, making the tower seem familiar and strange at one and the same time.

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects

Inside, the openings punched into the double-walled concrete shell are transformed into framed landscape paintings by wide, matte solid oak window frames that do not take up much wall space. These framed windows direct the guest’s attention to the prominent mountain chain, the gentle slopes and the dense forest grove.

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects
Site plan

Besides the raw concrete surfaces and the untreated oak floors, doors and fixtures, the black metal surfaces complement the harmonious, austere combination of materials. The client and architects haven’t built a flimsy holiday house, but instead a place of retreat that will remain standing for generations, despite any forthcoming changes of climate and landscape.

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects
Floor plans – click here for larger image

Client: private
Planning: Marte.Marte Architekten
Location: 6830 Laterns-Vorarlberg-Austria
Site area: 485.4 sqm
Gross floor area: 102.6 sqm
Floor area: 87 sqm
Built-up area: 43.03 sqm

Mountain Cabin by Marte Marte Architects
Cross section

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Schanerloch Bridge by Marte.Marte Architects

This gentle twist of concrete bridges an Alpine river on a scenic road between two towns in western Austria.

Schanerloch Bridge by Marte Marte Architects

Designed by Austrian studio Marte.Marte Architects, the bridge crosses the Schanerloch gorge on the road that leads from the city of Dornbirn towards the hamlet of Ebnit to the south.

Schanerloch Bridge by Marte Marte Architects

Referencing the arched stone bridges traditionally constructed in the region, the architects created a solid concrete volume with a gently arching profile and a twist in its middle that responds to the angle of the road.

Schanerloch Bridge by Marte Marte Architects

“The result is a concrete sculpture that might look unspectacular in plan and from the driver’s point of view,” says architect Marina Hämmerle, “but from the shore of the river winding through the gorge it unveils its compelling fascination: it playfully mimes the frozen dynamic of the mountain road and captures the dramatic place in reinforced concrete.”

Schanerloch Bridge by Marte Marte Architects

The Schanerloch Bridge was completed in 2005, but has been seen by few others than the drivers passing through.

Schanerloch Bridge by Marte Marte Architects

A number of bridge designs have been unveiled recently. OMA proposes a bridge for hosting events in Bordeaux, while Thomas Heatherwick has designed a garden to span the River Thames in London.

Schanerloch Bridge by Marte Marte Architects

See more bridges on Dezeen »
See more architecture in Austria »

Schanerloch Bridge by Marte Marte Architects
Site plan

Photography is by Marc Lins.

Here’s a project description from Marina Hämmerle:


Schanerloch Bridge, Ebnit Dornbirn

The bridge through the Schanerloch gorge is part of the impressive road from the city of Dornbirn to the hamlet of Ebnit which picturesquely situated by the well of the river Dornbirner Ache at the foot of scenic mountains. The spectacular route to this ancient settlement area is characterised by a series of natural rock tunnels and stone bridges.

Originating from the well-known typology of the stone arch bridge, modern technology takes the geometry of the arch to its very limits. The reduction of the arch rise to a statically necessary minimum is combined with a twist along one axis. The latter is also responding to the bending road as a curve immediately follows the bridge in both driving directions.

Schanerloch Bridge by Marte Marte Architects
Site section

The result is a concrete sculpture that might look unspectacular in plan and from the driver’s point of view, but from the shore of the river winding through the gorge it unveils its compelling fascination: it playfully mimes the frozen dynamic of the mountain road and captures the dramatic place in reinforced concrete.

Perfect in form, a masterpiece of design and statical calculation precisely fixed in the spectacular scenery.

Schanerloch Bridge by Marte Marte Architects
Bridge section

Client: City of Dornbirn
Location: Ebniter Straße, 6850 Dornbirn
Architecture: Marte.Marte Architekten ZT GmbH, Weiler
(Arch.DI Bernhard Marte, Arch.DI Stefan Marte)
Overall length: approx. 23m
Overall width: 5,50m bis 6,50m
Driving clearance (width): minimum 4,75m
Reinforced concrete arch: minimum thickness 35cm
Conrete volume: approx. 180m3
Footing: directly into the adjacent rock wall

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Marte.Marte Architects
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