Pixel with garden – Linz

Pixel mit Garten - Linz

was located right in the heart of Linz’s Franckviertel neighborhood. This was the site of a chicory coffee roasting plant and a horse hair spinning mill, and the quarter long considered Linz’s quintessential working-class neighborhood.

The buildings on Wimhölzelstraße were built prior to World War I at a time when there was a great need for proletarian housing in Linz.  The building was part of an ambitious public housing project that was started in 1919 to build 1,200 small flats. Because of the severe financial  crisis  of  the  interwar  years  only  160  of  these apartments  were  completed.  Despite the  high-density low-cost  housing  program,  they  included  communal gardens for residents to grow their own produce.

Thus in the pixel, the retail space has been transformed into an indoor garden with green peppers, gooseberries, lettuce and herbs for the guests to savor. In addition, the bedroom and bathroom in the former apartment had a sound & image installation created by Janina Wegscheider and Martin Lasinger reminded guests of a time when most apartments in Europe had no bathrooms and the use of public bathhouses a common practice. And finally, authentic wall patterns, a feature of working class aesthetics, have been a theme within the pixel, accentuating the textures and colors of working class living spaces in the city.