Mohrlife @ Hinge N°282/2020

Shou County Culture and Art Center TFD Hong Kong A Work of Substance Bodo Town Hall

www.hinge.hk HK$80 RMB80 US$11

[project file – austria]

Softie MOHR Life Resort Lermoos, Tyrol, Austria noa* This is a very unusual project, and it’s hard to know what to make of it. On the one hand, it is a piece of stern architecture, all sombre greys and massive formal elements put together in a strictly orthogonal, ‘wood-blocks’ kind of aesthetic. It juts out from its picturesque south Tyrol setting like an anachronism. Its architects describe it as a “stirring” addition to its lovely context. On the other hand, its interiors are a bit like a fantasy trip, so that the idea of contrast continues inside. You come upon furniture, decoration, features that seem like deliberate nose-thumbing at all the adult seriousness of the building envelope. And it’s all done by the same design office! So what are they up to?

Well, in a way, it all makes sense, or at least the ‘strong’ part of the scheme does. After all, this is not a namby-pamby landscape; it’s a place of monumental mountains, intense forests, powerful rivers and bluer-than-blue skies. The Zugspitze Mountain (even the name sounds like a curse word) looms nearby. Wimpy buildings wouldn’t cut it here. The concrete-and-glass, everything-square structure stamps itself down on the sloped site as if a challenge to anyone questioning it. The new spa, an addition to an already renowned resort property, makes muscular claim to an open chunk of the hillside, offering users a spectacular, exposed experience of the wider picture. It is 600 sqm of pools and buildings and resting areas connected to the main building. Taking advantage of the slope, it digs into the earth for the water areas. There are pods for individual relaxation within the larger spa. The building is consistent, offering glazed cubes delineated by concrete frames thicker than they needed to be, in order to emphasise – no, shout out – the structural concept. The huge surfaces of glass do double duty: they also reflect the surroundings, making mirrors of that mountain, as if the muscular little building had captured epic nature and caged it between its reinforced beams and posts. The water surface of the pool, when calm, does the same on the horizontal plane, for those inside. And so you begin to comprehend what the architects are getting at.

The pool includes six ‘Island Boxes’, for leisurely soaking, each a variation on the concrete cube theme of the building as a whole.

One of them features a pattern of mirrors that abstract the surroundings back in a trippy montage.

Inside, the cubic essence of the building remains paramount, but furnishings, lighting, fixtures and materials go all theatrical on you.

Huge daybeds in lush monochrome fabrics beckon, suggesting Cleopatra-esque poses. Heavy drapes readily offer privacy. Floors are in smooth concrete capped in a layer of resin, so that together with the exposed concrete beams and slabs, the hardness of the spatial envelope is still present, the better to make those lamps and tables and beds and cushions all jump out, or perhaps, sink down, in opposition. Well, why not? This is a spa, after all… It’s supposed to be indulgent. hinge 282_66

Photography by Alex Filz