With Haus der Architektur, the Kunstverein and parts of the Joanneum, Palais Thinnfeld is used by people from fields of culture devoted entirely to ›the discussion of current trends in contemporary art and its questions and issues of social relevance‹ (cited from invitation to tender) and who also wish to present this externally. The fact that their offices are in a Baroque building of historical importance is a fundamental contradiction between form (expression) and use (content) and the special treatment of this conflict forms the core of the competition task.

You can approach this task by preferring one to the detriment of the other and vice versa. We want to bring together the historical shell and the current use in an equitable co-existence which is, however, given its own dynamically interpretable identity like a picture puzzle depending on the respective point of view of the observer.