Reimagining Rural Space
A. Loos’s and H. Kulka’s Landhaus Khuner
S. Turovska (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
Jurjen Zeinstra – Mentor (TU Delft - Situated Architecture)
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Abstract
Situated in the mountainous landscape of Lower Austria, Landhaus Khuner (1929–1930), designed by Adolf Loos and Heinrich Kulka, offers a compelling synthesis of modernist spatial concepts and vernacular Alpine traditions. Originally conceived as a seasonal retreat for the Khuner family, the house embodies Loos’s theory of contextual architecture, where his urban Raumplan - an approach to volumetric spatial planning - finds new expression within a rural topography. Through detailed architectural analysis, redrawing, and historical contextualisation, this thesis examines how the house negotiates the tension between modernist abstraction and regional identity. Landhaus Khuner shows this confrontation in its interior. A rather hidden front door in the eastern facade leads to a cramped entrance, followed by a larger vestibule. From there, a turning staircase brings the visitor to the first floor, where a double-height galleried space opens to a large glass facade, with a spectacular view of the mountains. Landhaus Khuner shows how modernism can adapt rather than override when sustainability, regional specificity, and architectural identity become more important.