Inatura, Natural science museum in Dornbirn, Austria.
Inatura is a natural history museum in Dornbirn, housed since 2003 in the converted Rüsch-Werke foundry and turbine factory. Its roughly 3,000 m² of exhibition space, planned by HK Architekten with Christian Lenz and Dietrich Unterfaller, is organised around the mountain, forest and water habitats of Vorarlberg, with interactive stations on technical and physical phenomena and the permanent exhibition "Das Wunder Mensch" on the human body.
The building occupies the site of the former Rusch-Werke turbine factory, which operated from 1827 until 1984. The industrial area was transformed into this museum complex, which opened in 2003.
The name inatura was coined for the 2003 reopening, when the former Vorarlberger Naturschau — begun by Siegfried Fussenegger in 1934 in the old Fronfeste and later the Viehmarkthalle — moved into the Rüsch-Werke. The museum serves as Vorarlberg's documentation centre for nature, collecting records used to map the distribution and endangerment of species, and it publishes the "Roten Listen" for the state government.
Weekday visits or early morning hours tend to be quieter and more comfortable for viewing. The museum has wheelchair access, a natural sciences library, and a restaurant where you can sit outdoors.
The museum's conversion kept the old turnery workshops, the foundry and the halls between them, adding technical rooms, storage and offices inside the existing shells. The Kleinwasserkraftwerk Stadtgarten, a small hydropower plant with a Zuppinger water wheel, stands in the surrounding 25,000 m² Stadtgarten.
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