The OEAMTC (Austrian Automobile, Motorbike and Touring Club) was to build a new headquarters on Baumgasse in Vienna’s Third District by 2016. The design succeeds in handling the complex schedule of spaces required and the difficult urban situation in an apparently effortless and sovereign manner. An emphatically independent building is created that impressively embodies the specific qualities of the OEAMTC. The goal was to develop a building that consistently takes account of the OEAMTC’s impressive range of different functions – from test hall, counter hall, conference rooms, TV studio, staff restaurant, call-centre, social areas, office atrium to helicopter support point – and that also depicts the OEAMTC business philosophy of transparency and openness.
OEAMTC – the support point
From the service workshops to the heliport all the elements of the programme are laid out along a single vertical axis.
OEAMTC –transparency
On approaching the counter you find yourself on an oversized glazed cockpit, in the middle of the workshop one level below, where the mechanics have driven the cars that have just been handed over to them down a ramp.
OEAMTC –communication
All the parts of the building communicate with each other. In the public/semi-public area: the events hall, conference rooms, and TV studio are on the entrance level, on the level above is the highly important call-centre, which is indeed constantly on-line and in contact with the outside world.
OEAMTC – the sign
The building is a sign, a symbol of mobility. Its unique, circular and star-shaped form emphatically conveys the fact that here everything revolves around mobility and the means related to it and at the same time demonstrates the efficiency and speed of the organization.
OEAMTC – the landmarkbuilding
Through its shape the ÖAMTC headquarters clearly and deliberately distinguishes itself from the monotonous, yet heterogeneously scattered, block and slab-type buildings in the surroundings. The icon stands in a park and garden-like landscape.
