Professorships

The pristine ski slope extends out in front of me, just below the tips of my skis – the anticipation of carving the first track into this untouched territory. What will await me? Have I correctly considered all the influencing factors? Have I judged the avalanche situation correctly? It is precisely with these thoughts that I approach founding the institute at TU Graz.

When does one really ever have this chance to break new ground? There’s no avalanche warning report for founding institutes, but I’ve been able to receive huge support from all directions and in all areas. I don't know what lies ahead of me, but I’m very much looking forward to meeting this challenge full on and, together with my colleagues, carving the first tracks in this untouched landscape and re-establishing the subject of railway infrastructure research in Graz.

It is with great pleasure that I would like to contribute my many years of professional experience to the newly established professorship of Wood Architecture. Graz as a centre of culture and science in general and the Institute of Architecture Technology at TU Graz in particular have an excellent reputation among colleagues and for me this is a kind of return to my roots: before building my first timber constructions, I undertook extensive architectural excursions in Austria in order to study existing timber architecture.

Whenever moving to a new place, I prepared for the journey but I was always open to surprises. The same holds for Graz: Certainly, you can browse through web pages, read many books or papers about the place or the research at TU Graz. But from my point of view, getting to know the new colleagues and meeting other researchers make the appeal of being in Graz. Especially, I appreciated how common it is to being invited to different research groups and laboratories.