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Austria's second-largest city, Graz is a World Heritage-listed area that retains much of the look and atmosphere of medieval times. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, Graz has blossomed into one of the key centers of Central Europe, and was designated the Cultural Capital of Europe for 2003

the Kunsthaus Graz The city is constructing several new projects, including a town hall, concert hall, literature museum, airport, children’s museum, and urban gathering space. But one of the most prominent new works is the Kunsthaus, or Art House, a contemporary art- exhibition space on the city’s riverfront. The project was conceived by London architects Peter Cook and Colin Fournier, along with Austrian architectural firm Arge Kunsthaus. Standing across the Mur River from the city core

The building, described as biomorphic, thanks to an irregularly shaped mass reminiscent of a pancreas, liver, or stomach, as well as elongated skylight nozzles emerging from the building’s exterior. Its smooth facade is composed of blue acrylic panels, most of which are opaque. The architects say this “sleek cocoon” shape was formed primarily to let the space “flow” into its uneven site boundary along the Mur River Another source for the shape, explains Arge Kunsthaus’s head designer Neils Jonkhans, was a desire to mesh with the surrounding neighborhood’s scale and historic character

the biomorphic construction envelops two large exhibition rooms without additional supports. From the surface of the acrylic glass outer "skin", strikingly shaped "nozzles" project outwards to admit daylight: they are inclined to the north and thus provide optimum natural lighting. In the upper storeys, bridges link the 23-metre-high new structure with the "Eisernes Haus" which is the oldest of its kind in Europe and is classified as a historical monument- while the "Needle", a projecting, glass- enclosed structure, offers a spectacular view of the Old Town of Graz from a height of about 16 metres.

lobby facing the river, The Kunsthaus floats above its glass- walled ground floor. Spanning up to 60 metres in width, with two main entrances, a cafe, a media lounge and a bookstore The second level, which features a 9,500-square-foot exhibition space with 15-foot ceilings, an interactive information area and a large recreation room for children.

The upper exhibition area. Here. the 11,000-square-foot exhibition space is dramatically lit by artificial light sources as well as by natural light from the nozzles, whose apertures are outfitted with slats that automatically open and close according to the sun's intensity. One side of the upper level, an elongated, glass-enclosed cafe overlooks the city Over view to old town

This BIX media façade is a special feature of the Kunsthaus in both aesthetic and functional terms. Following a concept developed by the Berlin group realities:united, several circular fluorescent tubes were integrated into each section of the façade. These tubes turn the blue bubble into a house-sized low- resolution screen which can display simple image sequences and varying text streams. Thus the skin of the Kunsthaus constitutes an extraordinary medium for presenting art and related information transfers 56 pixels wide x 25 pixels high