In summer 2020, the Muirenhof, located on the Muiren hill in Serfaus, was generously redesigned. Hostess Sabine Hochenegger was looking for an architectural solution for her idea of a synthesis of tradition and contemporary ambience. A start in the redesign was made by the wellness area planned by her partner, master builder Ing. Wolfgang Lenz, and already realised in 2017. In 2020, the existing building was opened up together with architect Hannes Hotz through large, square window cut-outs, balconies and terraces, which open up generous views of the wonderful, unique surroundings. The successful metamorphosis of old and new is also visible in the anthracite-coloured wooden façade.
Extending mainly towards the west is a large lounge with panoramic views - the Muiren Lounge - which, as a café and bar, is not only intended for in-house guests, but is also open to outside guests such as village residents. In addition, four new family suites, one double and one single room were created. With the rooms in place of the former guest flats, Sabine Hochenegger lives the possibility of encounters between hosts and guests, in keeping with the best Tyrolean guesthouse tradition. In the basement is the contemporary wellness area.
In the interior design of the rooms, great importance was attached to sustainability, which is reflected in the choice of materials, such as real wood floors, panelling in the lounge area and new wooden chairs made by a carpenter. The Tyrolean style has been successfully taken up and interpreted in a contemporary way. The house exudes a light, airy, warm and homely atmosphere.
Sabine Hochenegger has found the ideal partner in Innsbruck-based artist and Germanist Susanne Loewit to make her idea of a metamorphosis of tradition and the present perceptible in the house artistically as well. In recent years, Susanne Loewit has intensively studied the cultural heritage of Tyrolean legends and juxtaposed the historical content with her own visual worlds.
In the book Tiroler Sagen. Bis in alle Gegenwart Loewit retold 22 sagas from North, East and South Tyrol and illustrated them with contemporary models, as they are present in the various media every day. Some of the illustrations created in the course of this saga project now hang in the Muirenhof. You can purchase the book exclusively signed by hand in the Muirenhof shop.
text Marie Luise Habicher | DeepL Translation
to the pictures by Susanne Loewit
Can one write about art? Can one discuss pictures, talk about painting, speak about something that is beyond language? Is visual art not beyond the spoken or written word? I asked myself these questions while looking at Susanne Loewit's paintings. But the answer is: we think in images and cannot do without language, even when we stand silently in front of a work of art.
When reading essays by the American writer Susan Sontag, I was amazed at how often Susanne Loewit's pictures came to mind, how involuntarily I made parallels. Thus Susan Sontag says: "The effective work of art leaves silence in its wake." When looking at Susanne Loewit's paintings, one becomes silent, because each painting tells its story, transports us into another life. One could also see these paintings as fragments, and "the fragment", says Susan Sontag, "presupposes that one knows and has experienced a great deal." And, says Sontag, "the highest goal of painting is to transcend the object." That is, what is represented in the painting is not what we think we see at first glance. It moves in another reality.
Susanne Loewit's painting contains stories of a very special depth. She paints the secret that is inherent in every picture. The detail of a face, for example, merely hints at what lies behind it. The open mouth of a woman can tell her story or that of another. The mouth in these pictures is that of a confident, active woman in the midst of life. And what did this mouth probably say in the moment that Susanne Loewit captured with the camera at the beginning of her working process?
Also in the illustrations for Susanne Loewit's 2017 book 'Tiroler Sagen. Bis in alle Gegenwart', their young, vivacious women are in the foreground. The artist sets out to explore the female psyche in the sagas. She shows that witches, for example, were not necessarily old and ugly, but often attractive, courageous women who wanted to develop freely and in a self-determined way. These seem to have escaped our bodily presence and make us aware that their feelings hardly differ from ours: Lust for life and joy, love and betrayal, jealousy and loneliness, grief, fear and death - the world of the soul has not changed significantly over the centuries, indeed millennia, it has remained the same in many cases - right up to the present day, and here the circle closes. Susanne Loewit's world of images opens up the wide field of a psychological introspection that sets no limits to the eye and the imagination.