1960s architecture

The building complex of the former spa hotel was built at the end of the 1960s on behalf of the German industrialist Kurt Vorlop, who commissioned architect Rudolf Berger from Munich with the construction of the health resort. Four individual structures featuring 1,000 beds in 345 apartments and the "first high alpine thermal, mineral, wave and indoor baths in Europe" with complete spa and medical department were built.

The architecture of the structures is characteristic for the era of the late 1960s. Apparently built irrespective of location, context or material, the sophisticated aesthetics of the structure, material, form and transparency is made accessible for those who want to see. The creative architectural work in the 1960s is the expression of the zeitgeist of an epoch symbolising belief in progress, enthusiasm for technology and economic miracles. The newly created architecture is presented in a deliberately provocative manner and cannot be uncoupled from the societal spirit of optimism at that time.

Numerous buildings from the 1960s have been lost through demolition in recent years. Voices of dissent are becoming increasingly louder from among the architects who press for preservation of these witnesses of an era – an indication that the peculiarity and significance of architecture from the 1960s are acknowledged in the meantime.