The new municipal building at Laxenburger Straße 4/4A is the second municipal building for which an artistic design competition was held by KÖR Vienna and WIGEBA. The new residential complex will be dedicated to the musician and human rights activist Willi Resetarits. The 6-storey façade area facing Columbusplatz to the east, with a possible extension around the corner to the north, as well as the soffit in the ground-floor passageway area, were available for the artistic design. It is intended to create a distinctive feature on the façade and in the entrance area, giving the location an unmistakable identity and recalling the life and work of Willi Resetarits. The competition was carried out as an invited, single-stage realization procedure.

The five-member jury selected the design by Johanna Kandl on May 16, 2024.

Johanna Kandl, „Be a mensch“

The artist's great achievement is to create an abstract portrait of Willi Resetarits that combines music, language and social commitment. By placing the term “Mensch” ("human being") at the center and referring to the diversity of Viennese people through multilingualism, the artist embeds Willi Resetarits in the society he stood up for. In a simple and impressive way that can be read across generations, Johanna Kandl succeeds in drawing a picture of the musician and human rights activist, who not only helped to shape cultural, but also social and political reality in Austria, who knew how to connect different social classes and cultural groups like no other and who thus became a moral authority for civil courage and the rights of all people in Austria across generations.

--- jury statement

Further competition entries

Franz Graf, o. T.

Franz Graf incorporates the positive radiance of Willi Resetarit's work into the formal design of his design. Brightly colored rays on the main façade point towards the tenth district. At the north-eastern corner of the façade, the spikes are mirrored and repeated in a different color and length on the northern façade, like two differently placed sides of a more complex backgammon board. The musical composition is based on the arrangement of windows and balconies. On the underside of the cantilever are colored diamonds that radiate from the north-east corner. On the ceiling of the entrance area, colored rays are bundled around the third of four columns. From there, they point towards the inner courtyard and the interior of the building. Existing elements of the architecture are deliberately incorporated into the design and reinforced by it. The choice of color and drawing create references to historical façade designs of Viennese residential buildings from the 1950s and 1960s.

Susi Jirkuff, o. T.

Susi Jirkuff's design focuses on two aspects of Willi Resetarit's work – music and humanity. The graphic outline of a Gibson guitar divides the main façade diagonally into two sections. On the body of the guitar, “BE A MENSCH” is written in gray block letters on a white background. In Yiddish, “Mensch” means an honest person of integrity. The area outside the outline and a strip of the façade around the corner are green. The dividing line continues on the underside of the overhang, with the wall to the left being white and to the right green, emphasizing the three-dimensionality of the building. On the ceiling in the entrance area, colored contours and surfaces of a bass and electric guitar overlay the painted collage of black and white fragmented concert posters, some of which have already been pasted over again. Among them, one by Kurt Ostbahn can be discovered.

Claudia Märzendorfer, „Lichtermeer“

Claudia Märzendorfer sees Willi Resetarits' greatest legacy in his social commitment and socio-political activism. With the symbol of the 1993 sea of lights, in which Resetarits was significantly involved in his role at SOS-Mitmensch, she has created a monument to his attitude and hopeful message: the main façade glitters as it progresses from top to bottom, with glitter added to the façade paint. In this context, the windows in the façade are formally reminiscent of banners. Resetarits is quoted in handwriting with the sentence “THE BEST IS YET TO COME”; parts of the gray lettering have a metallic sheen. The ceiling soffit in the ground floor zone immerses the passers-by in a sea of light. On a dark background, bright circular areas glow like a starry sky. A publication involving the pupils of the educational campus Innerfavoriten is to accompany the project. They will be invited to draw their interpretation of a sea of light.