Railway Station Lienz - A Mobility Hub as Urban Building Block
Lienz Railway Station is the most important railway station in East Tyrol and is centrally located within the town of Lienz. The historic station building dated back to 1871, was destroyed during the Second World War, rebuilt, and subsequently renovated several times.
Building the City Further
Between 2018 and 2021, the station was expanded and revitalized into a fully accessible mobility hub, placing pedestrians, cyclists, and public transport at the center of its design.
The key architectural elements are the daylight-filled pedestrian and bicycle underpass, the covered bus terminal, an additional platform, the revitalized historic station building (ÖBB customer center, restrooms, restaurant, and ÖBB offices on the first floor), and an adjoining extension housing a supermarket. The sequence of these elements, their geometries, and their intuitive functionality form the guiding principle of this new urban building block.
The structure of this urban junction is composed of interlocking spatial sequences that transition from strict geometric forms to dynamically flowing spaces. The concept of bright permeability and clear visual unity is realized through a continuous structural connection extending from the roofs of the bus terminal to the station atrium, through the underpass, and onward to the canopies on both sides of the renovated historic main building, finally reaching the exposed concrete façades of the adjoining extension.
From the Bus Terminal to the Cross-City Passage
The seemingly floating roofs of the bus terminal create the impression that they have been developed from the flowing contour lines of the surrounding topography. Their distinctive openings frame the silhouettes of the mountains, making them an integral part of the architecture. The prestressed concrete roof structure, with its inclined, conically sloping undersides and minimally pronounced edges, covers the two bus platforms with two centrally connected, free-spanning, lightweight shell structures and is linked to the central atrium of the pedestrian underpass. This open hall, filled with daylight through a vaulted glass dome, continues into the spacious underpass. From here, the railway platforms are also accessible without barriers. A 129-meter-long photographic installation follows the curved course of the underpass, projecting the Dolomites as a panoramic image into the passage.
