Hofen Castle in Lochau on Lake Constance in Vorarlberg was built by the noble Reitenau family in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Then he changed several owners, having managed to be a brewery, a monastery shelter for children with mental problems and a school of home economics; in the middle of the last century, it housed a military unit, a hospital and a rest house for soldiers. After the war, the Chamber of Commerce opened a hotel school there with a hostel for students, and today the Vorarlberg authorities use the castle as a training center, including additional and continuing education, in combination with a "seminar" hotel designed for students of such courses.
Marte. Marte Architekten made the castle more convenient for this function, combining a thorough restoration of the exterior (if possible with a return to the base of the 16th century) with the reconstruction of the interior that has undergone many transformations, where, of course, all the original parts have been preserved - wooden coffered ceilings, stucco, sandstone door frames and window frames. So, the chapel of St. Oswald with painted vaults, which stood empty for a long time, became the main training hall.
On the ground floor there is a reception desk, a cafe, a restaurant and a bar. Above are thirteen seminar rooms of various sizes. The upper part of the building is occupied by 31 hotel rooms: from there you can see the Alps and Lake Constance.
The laconic new part of the building with lattice facades made of aluminum adjoins the historical part without any compromise, but at the same time does not try to draw attention to itself. On the ground floor there is a kitchen, technical rooms, storage facilities. But its main component is two staircase and elevator nodes with spectacular interiors of black concrete.
