Ein Pavillon für die Kunst im Salzburger Mirabellgarten und sein Architekt Karl Mayr
Anselm Wagner
Salzburg/Vienna: Verlag Müry Salzmann, 2023
German, 112 pages, softcover
ISBN 978-3-99014-243-1
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The exhibition pavilion in the Zwergelgarten in Salzburg was built in 1950 on the occasion of a large retrospective of the Nazi sculptor Josef Thorak, which occupied the entire park west of the Mirabellgarten. The building is analyzed here for the first time in terms of the history of architecture: It centers on the pavilion’s architect, Karl Mayr (1902–1979), a prizewinning student of Clemens Holzmeister, who created one of the most important modern sacred buildings in Upper Silesia, then served Hitler, and after the war worked as an urban planner and as a politician of the Verband der Unabhängigen (Federation of Independents) in the Salzburg Landtag. This book, through text and images, allows readers to experience the pavilion’s and its planner’s eventful history. As if through a magnifying glass, it focuses on the postfascist restoration after 1945, the cultural politics of the occupying power of the United States, and the architecture of “Old Objectivity,” which characterized the urban planning of the city of Mozart well into the 1960s. The “Zwergelgarten Pavilion” now serves as the summer home of the Galerie der Stadt Salzburg. Artists appreciate its simple, atmospheric interior and its central location.