Loisium Hotel Expansion / Steven Holl Architects

In Langenlois, 60 minutes west of Vienna, on a gently south-sloping vineyard, the Loisium Hotel and Wine Center celebrates the rich local heritage of an ancient wine vault system. The historic subterranean network, which includes stone passages that are 900 years old, underlies the urban plan of the town. The first two buildings of the SHA designed Loisium Hotel Complex sought to create an analogical relation to the geometry of the cellars, with the Wine Center (2003) embedded within the vineyards and the Hotel (2005) referencing the branching morphology of the vaults above.