Wissensturm, Educational high-rise building in Innenstadt district, Linz, Austria.
The Wissensturm is a 63-metre elliptical tower with 15 upper floors on a three-storey base, in the Volksgartenviertel of Linz. Architects Franz Kneidinger and Heinz Stögmüller designed it, with Manfred Diessl completing the plans. It opened on 14 September 2007 and houses the Volkshochschule Linz and the Stadtbibliothek Linz, which gave the building its name.
On 3 June 2004 the Linz municipal council voted unanimously to build the Wissensturm, and it opened on 14 September 2007. The city provided around 28 million euros, placing the project alongside the Lentos Kunstmuseum (2003) and the planned Ars Electronica Center extension on the path to Linz's year as European Capital of Culture 2009. The tower merged the Volkshochschule Linz, founded in 1947 to help overcome Nazi ideology, with the city library.
The building houses an adult education center and public library where people from across the city gather to learn and share knowledge. Visitors use the spaces to attend classes or explore the collections together.
The Wissensturm stands in the Volksgartenviertel, not by the main station; its address is on the south side of the Volksgarten, near the Wissensturm stop of the city tram. The tower and its three-storey base are reached by a panoramic lift group, and the building was fitted with guidance systems, induction loops for hearing-aid users and a pressurised escape lobby shared by the safety staircase and lifts.
The lift tower's facade is structured by the letters of the alphabet, part of Robert Schuster's work "Dynamische Liftfahrt". In the foyer, Claudia Märzendorfer's "Code – a matter of form" arranges books into a coded text as a room-dividing wall. Both came from over 70 entries in the Kunst am Bau competition.
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