LP The lesson of tyrolean Modernism Siegfried Mazagg and the Berghof in Seefeld Daniel Zwangsleitner Politecnico di Torino Siegfried Mazagg was born in 1902 in the village of Pfalzen in then Austrian South-Tyrol. He visited the “Staatsgewerbeschule - Baufach” a technical college for building design in Innsbruck, where his teachers Clemens Holzmeister and Lois Welzenbacher left a lasting impression . After leaving this institution in 1922 he had to endure a period of orientation and self-assertion. After unsuccessful attempts to settle in Germany and to position himself as a painter (Exhibition at the Tyrolean State Museum “Ferdinande-
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um”) he joined the construction firm “Innerebner & Mayr” in 1923. The firm which later will construct the “Achensee hydropower station” in Jenbach, Tyrol. To what extent Mazagg was involved in this project is unclear1 though it is known that after an intervention of the Heimatschutz a sort of architectural competition or exhibition was held where amongst others also well known Clemens Holzmeister and Lois Welzenbacher presented their designs. The architectural designs drawn by Siegfried Mazagg were not only very positively mentioned by influential art historian Heinrich Hammer but subsequently found their way into the already started construction of the power station. It was the first possibility for Mazagg to publicly draw attention to himself and his talent. In 1928 he independently started his architect’s office in Innsbruck. Within the few remaining years until his early and tragic death in a car accident in 1932 he succeeded as architect with a series of pioneering hotels and residential buildings. His best known projects remain the “Hotel Berghof” in Seefeld 1929-30; the Pension Bergheim in Berwang 1932 and the stylistically strongly differing reconstruction of the “Hotel Mariabrunn” above Innsbruck, 19312.
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