Lasserhaus Art Hotel/

In the heart of South Tyrol opens Lasserhaus: 

An Art Hotel housed in an aristocratic residence dating back to the 15th century, restored and transformed by Vudafieri-Saverino Partners

A balanced contrast between works of art, memories and encounters:  

The Italian architecture studio adds new value to an ancient building in Brixen, South Tyrol’s oldest town,  redesigning its functions, rooms and furnishings. 

Brixen, Italy | Giving new life to a historic residence, finding balance between respect for the ancient building and contemporary living styles. This is what Vudafieri-Saverino Partners achieved in  Brixen – medieval town nestled among the mountains of South Tyrol – reinventing the use and

function of an aristocratic residence dating back to the 15th century, called Lasserhaus. Commissioned by the Faller family, owners of this old building for around 40 years, architects Claudio Saverino and Tiziano Vudafieri have divided up the interiors, transforming the first two  floors into a 4-star superior Art Hotel and allocating the last two as the family’s private home.  The hotel has ten bedrooms: three suites, six doubles and a single with a cosy sophisticated mood.  Inside the rooms and the common areas, the Faller family’s collection of classical paintings meets  works by contemporary artists, turning the space into an interesting new attraction for the collective.

The concept 

For the architectural restoration and interior design of Lasserhaus, a building fully listed by the  Superintendency for Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape, the architects focused on the dialogue  between history and contemporaneity. Thanks to an approach constantly attentive to the context and  respectful of the genius loci, the Milanese studio reinterpreted the original elements of this dwelling,

bringing them together in the new Art Hotel with contemporary design choices.  The project reflects the peculiarities of the episcopal city of Brixen, which blend a medieval tradition  and atmosphere with avantgarde cultural offerings. The interiors of Lasserhaus – located on the banks  of the Isarco River and connected by a bridge to the old town – are in fact enriched by the works of  five artists who confronted themselves with the past of this residence, leaving with their works of art  a narrative legacy in the different spaces of the hotel.

“When we visited Lasserhaus, we were enthusiastic about the idea of tackling restoration of a building  so steeped in history,” say architects Tiziano Vudafieri and Claudio Saverino. “It was not just a matter  of restoring a fifteenth-century building that was fully listed by the Superintendency, but of giving it  a new life and making it a point of interest for locals. Also by using art, integrating the family’s  valuable collection of classical paintings with new contemporary works. Our project does not neglect  the traditional soul of this ancient building, instead managing to respectfully and somewhat subtly  dialogue with it and enrich it with contemporary languages and materials. Lasserhaus has, in this  way, become a small yet important new part of the city’s urban life and its propensity for hospitality.” 

The rooms 

One the ground floor, the lobby and reception form a space full of memories, characterised by soft  lighting and decorated with family works of art and heirlooms. This leads to the first four bedrooms  and a small lounge with a library corner for guests to use, as well as a wine cellar with small tasting  room, interpreted by one of the pioneers of digital art, the Austrian Peter Kogler, who has used  psychedelic patterns to create unusual spatial depths to be explored one by one. Walking up the  internal staircase to the mezzanine floor, where the architects have created a spa with sauna and jacuzzi, visitors immediately encounter the work of Alexander Wierer, focused on the incessant progression of time and the transience of the present. The first floor houses the breakfast room and the other five bedrooms.

While their historical features are still visible, the rooms have been given a new look thanks to a combination of natural materials, such as larch and beech wood and brass, which warms and embellishes the details, and soft tactile surfaces such as velvet. They also feature a play of material textures that lend three-dimensionality to the soft furnishings. Some of the furniture has been salvaged, such as the restored chairs typical of the Tyrolean tradition, but most of the pieces have been made to the architects’ design: the wardrobes and partition panels, velvet bedheads with brushed larch sticks and desks, and the panelling behind the beds in minimal elegant strips of wood.

A careful study of colour has resulted in a palette inspired by the colours of the autumn woods and mountains: from the green of shiny laminate to the brown tones declined in the red of the brushed larch, or the warmer darker burnt larch. Artistic incursions can also be found in some of the rooms, such as Ingrid Hora’s ‘Wall Bars’, a large work that offers guests new perspectives and encourages them to give free rein to their ideas; or ‘Thoughts and Planets’, an installation by the renowned artist Esther Stocker: ten sculptures that seem to float on the ceiling vault and dissolve fixed points thanks to broken geometries.

Where the lighting was concerned, Vudafieri-Saverino Partners wanted to create a cosy atmosphere with soft diffuse light from floor and wall lamps. In the communal areas, suspension lamps have been chosen instead, such as the striking chandelier in the breakfast room, where ‘Expect the best’, a work by visual artist Petra Polli, also hangs.

The art collection

Two curators are responsible for the Lasserhaus art project: Stefanie Prieth, for the contemporary art works, and Rose Bourdon, for the family collection. These artistic interventions are only the start of cultural activity that will branch out on several levels, from artist residencies to collaboration with other cultural institutions and the systematic growth of an art collection.

Central to the contemporary art curatorial project was the concept of connection and openness: considering art itself as an instrument of relationship, with their works the artists have transformed the interiors of the Art Hotel into places of dialogue and exchange. The contemporary artworks inside Lasserhaus thus become an integral part of the environment: a subliminal and unobtrusive cultural presence, an “everyday occurrence that is part of a whole”, explains the curator.

The curatorship of the Faller family’s collection, comprising more than 100 works ranging from the 1600s to the mid-twentieth century, has sought to create dialogue both between the oldest and the most modern works, and between classical and conceptual exhibition techniques, translating this encounter with lightness. The lift room on the ground floor, known as the ‘patrons’ room’, showcases portraits of couples who formerly owned this estate, playing with the gazes of the different characters. Prominent among them are two paintings by Stephan Kessler (1622-1700) depicting the Thurner couple, with wife Rosina greeting guests as they enter the room. A little further along, in a ‘conversation’ corner, a series of more modern local landscapes, painted by Lesley de Vries (1926- 2012) have been placed side by side to join the different horizons, thus creating a unique panorama and transforming the fragmented series into a ready-made, simple, poetic installation.

• Architectural Project and Interior Design: Claudio Saverino and Tiziano Vudafieri, Vudafieri Saverino Partners, Milan-Shanghai
• Project leader: Elisa Zhu
• Team: Alessandra Bottiroli, Francesca Fantini, Ioana Leordean, Margherita Mezzetti, Anna Petrara,  Vanessa Ramponi, Irene Sobrino, Maddalena Trojsi, Carlotta Ferro Garel, Sabrina Sala Curator of Contemporary Art Exhibition: Stefanie Prieth
• Curator of ancient art installations: Rose Bourdon
• Authorisation projects: Lukas Ferrari, Studio Ferrari, Bolzano
• Lighting design: Walter Amort, Studio Amort, Bressanone
• Structural design: Ulrich Kauer, Kauer Seehauser, Bolzano
• Mechanical systems design: Georg Wiedenhofer, Heiz Studio, Bolzano
• Electrical and special systems design: Stefan Roalter, Studio Eplan,Bressanone  Acoustic design: Klaus Ramoser, Nira Consulting, Bressanone
• Photo: Paolo Valentini