Renowned Austrian legal publisher MANZ Bel Étage has renovated its Vienna headquarters with original, early 20th-century designs by Adolf Loos still intact. Located in the city’s historic first district, the workplace is updated by Podrecca Architects and Josel Göbel with a more organic and unifying flow. “Spaces with different functions are thus interwoven. The bel étage takes on a sense of its own world,” says Boris Podrecca, “through mirrored walls that suggest the feeling of a room divided by a folding screen or a spatial extension. The outside world and the interior flow into one another. The mirrors are printed with legal quotations, both classics and more recent texts. The paragraph symbol also appears as a design element in the interior.”
Punctuated with a recessed entrance and indirect lighting across 1,720 square feet, the office’s subtle intervention by Podrecca rekindles the site’s legacy through a contemporary lens, transforming the space into an exclusive, minimalist communication center. Expanded sightlines render the office a more welcoming public space unified with mineral-based materials and MANZ’s signature red hue adorning the walls of the exhibition space, meeting room, and the historic, time capsule-like Loos Room. A media room is also featured onsite and equipped to host recordings and webinars with soundproofing, a projector, and a green screen.
