Wood-Framed Insertions Preserve and Improve an Artist’s Historic Home in Italy

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Project Details:

Location: Lana, South Tyrol, Italy

Architect: Messner Architects

From the Architect: "Located in Lana’s beautiful historic old town, we find the Egger family’s home. To the west, the three-story house faces a small town square that is charmingly beset on all sides by testimonials of history. In fact, it was in 1908 that Wassily Kandinsky himself, during a stay in Lana, paid tribute to this square in a painting, which also portrays this building.

"Today, artist Hannes Egger, his wife, Birgit, and their daughter, Maya, call this house their home. The first and second floors of the house were reconstructed and made inhabitable about a decade ago through an internal construction. Now, in a new project, the ground floor, originally used as a workshop, was to be recovered and turned into a studio for our client. The Egger family home, located in the heart of Lana, faces the small square rather humbly with a modest punched-window façade, a double-pitched roof, and an arched entry gate. The east façade, facing the garden, is homey and cozy with its wooden staircase and balcony.

"The floor in the studio was dewatered, insulated, and furnished with floor heating. Just like on the upper levels of the house, the inside of the building envelope is a ventilated wooden frame structure. A central module with an interior bathroom docks into the existing frame on its north side. On its remaining three sides, the module is accessible as storage space with drawers, shelves, closets, and a walk-in archive.

"Along the studio’s south side, there is a small kitchen unit with a mobile kitchen block. Here, a previously existing opening leading to the garden was expanded and replaced with a generous glazed door element, providing the studio with more day light. The wooden gate that once opened the house toward the square was replaced with a copper-clad door. A suspended installation grid stretching from the garden to courtyard simultaneously functions as a lighting element. A new doorway connects the studio to the small side annex that used to be a pigpen and now functions as workshop, storage, and bike shelter.

"To the artist Hannes Egger, the studio is a space where thinking and creating happens, a place in which to take refuge and seek connection to the world. As a result, the rooms surrounding the module at the center cater to a variety of needs. From the outside, the house appears anciently unaltered; in fact, one might think it has surrendered graciously to the hands of time. Once stepping inside, however, one feels as though they’ve entered a parallel universe removed from the immediate context. There is but one point on the inside where our gaze meets the ancient wall, thus pulling the space, its artist, and visitors right back into the context of the house’s surroundings."

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