Of all the places I have visited in Europe, I found Innsbruck to be the most charming. It's a small city by the river Inn, surrounded by mountains. It is sparsely populated but has all the required infrastructure, and it's less touristy than, say, Salzburg. I was there for just one day, so what I learnt wasn't much, but the I did develop a basic understanding of modern architecture there:
First of all, Innsbruck has fully adopted the mechanized, modern style of architecture. While other parts of the world have moved on to the more human postmodernism, modernism rules in Innsbruck.
The facades are kept flat, with almost no overhangs or decorative features.
Bright colors are used boldly in order to make up for the rigid functionality of the elevations, so seeing reds, blues and greens on buildimg facades. This in my opinion also helps offset the dreary, snow covered site surroundings during the winter months.
A common way of incorporating color is to use colorful window frames.
The beauty in repetition, as advocated by structuralism, can often be seen in landscape. Following photo shows seating arrangements in a park, with concrete blocks as seats in a repeating pattern:
Unfortunately, I had very little time and couldn't explore the interiors of buildings. The only one I saw was Technikerhaus, my hotel, which had a simple, doubly-loaded corridored designwith simple rectangular plans of rooms and exposed pipes.
Some more photographs of building facades in Innsbruck:
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