Soothing your mind and soul with fabulous panoramas of Dornbirn, an Austrian town located in the Rhine Valley, Restaurant Karren was recently expanded and upgraded to explore a harmonious design posibility. Having been expanded over generations, the restaurant needed to vibrate alongside its fascinating panorama and bring a new life to the popular Karren cable-car station.
“The concept not only doubles the seating within the panoramic dining room and increases the outdoor terrace area; it also provides an optimization of internal service processes, completely reconfiguring the restaurant kitchen and the storage areas.”
The restaurant borrows the name and notoriety of the Karren mountain, absorbing its popularity and expanding the panoramic possibilities of its location. Re-designed by Architekten Rüf Stasi Partner (ARSP) and photographed by Zooey Braun, this popular city destination now showcases a sustainable design flaunting a new steel and glass structure attached to the front end, while the old south-facing wooden construction was re-imagined with a new floor-plan. The glass ring offers breathtaking panoramas of Lake Constance and the Rhine Valley, constructing a repetitive visiting pattern for anyone who is lucky enough to see this part of the world and creating a mesmerizing effect for guests as they move under the glass enclosure when they arrive from the cable-car or from the mountain path.
Dressed in a new timber facade that also encompasses the concrete building of the cable car station, the restaurant flaunts its sleek shape over the landscape below. Including new views to the east and north thanks to the new extension and re-design, the restaurant 956m above sea level was meticulously planned to expose its charm and hide the excruciating work behind this massive project:
“The pre-assembled steel parts were individually transported via the mountain road and fully assembled on the terrace. Using the most powerful crane in the foothills of the Alps, the entire steel construction was lifted into place on the 11th of April 2013, and the end result was accurate to within 1mm.”
Are you impressed yet or are you waiting to see it with your own eyes?
