VENTA Real Estate Group
Simplicity meets naturalness
The “Steirerhof” on Jakominiplatz in the heart of Graz is a place with a long history. The “House of the City of Trieste” stood on this site from 1790 until it was rebuilt and opened as the “Grandhotel Steirerhof” in 1905. The luxury hotel was then regarded as the city’s premier address, where numerous celebrities from the worlds of culture and politics stayed until 1989.
Today’s Steirerhof was finally built in 1992/93 according to the design of architect Adolf Krischanitz. This time as a commercial and office building which, thanks to its eye-catching façade and colors, has shaped the cityscape of the Styrian capital no less than its architectural predecessors ever since.
We were commissioned to plan and redesign the reception area, meeting rooms and offices for the VENTA Real Estate Group, which is based in the Steirerhof. The aim was to adopt the functional simplicity and permeability of the design language as well as the natural color palette of the façade and reflect it in the interior spaces.
In the reception area, whose floor-to-ceiling windows open up a panoramic view over the rooftops of Graz, this is particularly evident in the combination of sunny colors and the wall design of living moss as well as the graphically permeable rear wall behind the modern, simple reception desk.
The theme in the meeting rooms and offices is in turn determined by a different color from the façade palette, which is contrasted with the throughout green-framed windows and is continued across the walls and seating furniture right up to the floating “clouds” of the lighting elements, which are slightly suspended from the ceiling.

