Salon Stolz, Graz by su.n – spaceunit.net and architektursalon

Salon Stolz: A museum dedicated to the composer Robert Stolz. By opening up the garden – transforming the fence into a surrounding bench to create an urban neighborhood park and redefining the entrance with a large roof, Salon Stolz revitalizes a formerly important avenue leading into the city center.

The new entrance to what was formerly Austria’s oldest accident hospital, later converted into a closed nursing home, now serves, after clearing some later additions and reorganizing internal processes, as a “living museum” – a dance hall, concert place, and experimental living room. Salon Stolz forms the lobby of the senior residence upstairs and day centre downstairs, thus becoming an open, inclusive, and vibrant place that brings together residents and passersby, young and old, handicapped and sportsmen, locals and tourists. In this way, a small intervention transforms the cityscape and improves the social environment, creating an inclusive urban space. Small space, big impact.