CONTEMPORARY HOTEL DESIGN // The construction of the Hotel Klinglhuber represents a decisive turning point in the development of contemporary architecture in Krems. On its website, the hotel justly touts the fact that it was conferred the Austrian National Award for Tourism and Architecture. // The hotel’s story is as complicated as it is remarkable. The Architecture Advisory Committee rejected plans for the construction of a new hotel several times, the themes of which were based upon kitschy, romanticizing notions. Wolfgang Krejs, the Urban Development Director at the time, had initiated the architectural advisory board in the early 1990s. Members of the board included Friedrich Achleitner, Johann Georg Gsteu, and Ernst Beneder. At their recommendation, a hotel design by Elena and Alois Neururer was submitted, one which was distinguished not only by its significant aesthetic clarity, but also by its improved operating efficiency and greater number of rooms in a same-sized building. // The compact, four-storey hotel is located in the medieval periphery of the city, east of the river Krems. The top floor has been recessed, fronted by a row of terraces. The foyer on the sandstone-plastered ground floor is spacious. The stories project out over the corner, the upper ones plastered in white. The Biedermeier bay windows with curved panes of glass characteristic for Krems served as the inspiration for the bay windows of the hotel, in a new interpretation.

Elke Krasny, ORTE Architekturnetzwerk Niederösterreich (Hg.), Lower Austria – The Architecture Landscape Waldviertel Region, Wien 2011