Ferdinand Rubach

Located in Vienna’s oldest Baroque garden, this project addresses the gradual transformation of the Flak Tower in the Augarten. The tower, a 132,000-ton concrete monolith, has cast an oppressive and inaccessible shadow over its surroundings since its construction. Decaying and unusable, it paradoxically endures as a preserved piece of heritage, despite its controversial history. The project challenges this rigid conservation by reimagining the interplay between preservation, deconstruction, and creation. It seeks to radically redefine the relationship between past and present—not as mere conservation, but as a participatory process of imagination and renewal. Central to the project is the idea of carefully taking apart the crumbling tower in a way similar to how stone is cut in a quarry. This process generates temporary spaces within the tower’s intermediate deconstruction stages while repurposing the extracted blocks into new architectural objects for collective gatherings throughout the park and the city. The once-intimidating tower evolves into an accessible ruin, breathing new life into its surroundings. Its transformation symbolizes a shift: from a war memorial to a monument of peace, fractured yet reimagined, fostering connection and renewal.