Steirereck am Pogusch by PPAG

The Steirereck is one of the most renowned top restaurants in Vienna. In 2014, PPAG Architects gave the traditional restaurant a radically new ambience. Now the Viennese architects have converted an old traditional inn in the middle of the mountains into an offshoot with guest rooms, a wellness area and a staff flat. 

Invisible expansion

For decades, the catering facilities at Pogusch were housed in the old parlours in a historic stone building and the neighbouring wooden house. In order to expand the guest rooms, add additional uses and accommodate the corresponding infrastructure with delivery, storage rooms and kitchen, the room programme had to be extended from 750 m² to 3000 m². As the impression of detached houses on the green meadows was not to be spoilt, the majority of the additional building volume is dug into the slope and covered by an intensively greened flat roof structure. These rooms receive daylight through glazed slope edges, skylights and inner courtyards. 

Sleeping in the glass house

Visible on the surface are two glasshouses with shed roofs, whose reinforced concrete interiors follow the slope of the hillside like terraces. The small greenhouse is used for growing plants and for staff to stay. Sleeping cabins for guests are arranged between the plants on the terraces in the large glass house. Through a panoramic window, even the sauna on the first floor has a view of the landscape through the glass house.  The service areas and a break room for staff on the ground floor, which is partially dug into the slope, also receive plenty of daylight as they are arranged around a green atrium.

Feasting in the Salettl

As a third structure, the architects attached a new silver pavilion to the old wooden house. This so-called Salettl opens out into the landscape like a summer house. The roof of the filigree steel construction is stepped in cubes of different sizes, which divide the interior into separable areas. Its facade made of aluminium foam panels and the transparent curtains made of acorn slats form an exciting contrast to the old parlours, whose furnishings and lighting have been redesigned by PPAG. A surprise awaits female guests in the basement in particular. The partition walls of the ladies' restroom are covered with aluminium panels that reflect the cloud-shaped 3D-printed ceramic washbasins in a matt finish and make the room appear wider than it actually is.

Ladies' restroom in the basement of the Salettl, © Hertha Hurnaus

Open-plan tap room kitchen

The kitchen is designed as an open-plan tap room kitchen. In this area of the gastronomy, the ceilings are constructed from wooden keel web panels, which, despite the heavy loads of the green roof, allow for wide column-free spans and are reminiscent of old wooden beam ceilings with their backlit ends.

From a distance, Pogusch still presents the image of individual houses in the alpine meadow. © Hertha Hurnaus

From a distance, the Pogusch still presents the image of individual houses in the alpine meadow. Only the staff and overnight guests will be able to experience the versatile, bright rooms above and below the turf. But day visitors to the restaurant will also realise that this high quality of food and drink cannot be produced in a cramped pub kitchen.

Read more in Detail 4.2024 and in our datenbank Detail Inspiration.