Viennese Guest Room

Vienna, Austria

Photo © Hans Schubert; photo model: Minna Liebhart

Architects: heri & salli

Location: Vienna, Austria
Year: 2015

The architects’ studio heri&salli designed the VIENNESE GUEST ROOM for the Gegenbauer Vinegar Brewery in Vienna. They created guest rooms in 5 small apartments in a Viennese apartment building, with the bare minimum of intervention. The main and practically the sole piece of furniture is the so- called VIENNESE GUEST BED.

Piled up squared timbers create a central sleeping area, the surrounding areas can also be used. It combines all of the functions of a guest room, any further furniture is redundant, the centre is the room...reduced to its minimum. We move about on the area available – the surface is the substance. The room is really only its own frame and boundaries ...we do not really need these anymore.

Bricks, ceilings, floors are uncovered and make the history of the house visible. New installations like cabling, pipes, chains or ropes are nothing more than what they are. Technological seductions give way to visible construction details – a kind of NEGATIVDESIGN.

As far as the bathroom is concerned, the stages of a stay are reflected in the sequence of the elements that are there – hygiene for nomads. We move about on the spatial field available. Any possible fittings and functions within this are rather temporary markings.