Mautern is in the Liesingtal. This is a typical alpine area at the foot of the Eisenerz Alps. Depending on the time of year the landscape can be charming or marked by a certain rawness or melancholy. These preconditions mean that even the smallest architectural intervention is significant, especially if this intervention does not employ the prevalent language of the existing buildings. Riegler/Riewe completed their first housing project in this rural environment. Their formal language and the stringency of their concepts distinguish them radically from what is usual in the area.
The development is conceived of as the built termination of a side valley which rises from the centre of the village. The positioning of the two blocks with relation to each other (one is oriented towards the stream, the other follows the street) - up to now only part of the project has been completed - closes off the development pattern of the village which is visually intercepted by the courtyard situation created. At the same time Riegler/Riewe drive an architectural wedge into the landscape and accentuate a border situation or point of intersection between two areas.

As one approaches the village the start is clearly marked by the two terminating tower buildings shaped almost like buffers. The architecture stages caesura which create in the dramaturgy of the development a distinction between beginning and end, between nature and culture, landscape and village.

Arno Ritter