GABU Heindl Architecture

The Viennese Stadtkino (City Cinema) in the Vienna Künstlerhaus was conceptualized as an activated and itself activating interior and exterior space within the urban setting of the Karlsplatz. The cinema expands from the cinema hall to the passage leading to the subway (Künstlerhauspassage).

The urbanistic and architectural concept defines the cinema foyer as a public space - by extending the street and public space from the Karlsplatz right into the lobby, even further: by understanding the cinema foyer as an exemplary form of transitory urbanity. The inside becomes part of the outside space and vice versa. Part of the experience of going to the cinema, e.g. the wait before the movie may just as well take place under the larch tree outdoors (which before the remodeling was hidden for years behind fake scaffolding).

The interior space of the foyer is a space of height as much as one of depth: part of the design work was to "empty" the space of claddings but also of whole building parts, such as a storeroom right above the entrance. By demolishing it, the entry space got changed into a double floor-height volume and instead of the storeroom, the hovering cinema hall itself is now visible right when entering the building. The free space opens up for changing images and content. Yet, the transitory space does not mean a fast run through, but rather a zone for waiting, where there are niches in unexpected areas and spaces of potentiality, free of function and free of any pressure to consume.

After all - and to say it by words of the architect, film- and cultural theorist Siegfried Kracauer - the experience of waiting is close to the film experience.