(b Munich, 20 Jan 1889; d Absam, Tyrol, 13 Aug 1955). German architect and teacher. He trained as a bricklayer and after graduating from the Technische Hochschule, Vienna, he gained practical experience in various architectural studios in Munich. He also studied architecture (1912–14) at the Technische Hochschule, Munich, under Friedrich von Thiersch and Theodor Fischer. After World War I he set up his own architectural practice in Innsbruck. Together with Erich Mendelsohn, Hans Scharoun, Hugo Häring and Alvar Aalto, Welzenbacher was one of the leading exponents of organic architecture in Europe. His career began with the Settari House (1922–3) at Bad Dreikirchen, South Tyrol, a romantic country house whose design responds to the context of the Alpine landscape with a rather dramatic baroque form. He then developed a more dynamic, free-form approach that was influenced by Mendelsohn, also a student of Fischer, and he built the Buchroithner House, Zell am See, and the Rosenbauer House (1929–30) at Pöstlinberg, Linz, with slightly rounded volumes accented by semicircular balconies. This approach culminated in the Heyerovsky House (1932) at Zell am See, whose helical, organic form echoes the topography of the site; the building is an architectural gesture inspired by the lake and mountain scenery towards which it is orientated, and it creates a remarkable synthesis between modern architecture and landscape. Welzenbacher moved to Munich between 1931 and 1943. After 1933, when Hitler came to power, he returned to earlier ideas by combining his sculptural approach with the folk tradition of the South Tyrol; this is best demonstrated in the Schmucker country house (1938–9) at Ruhpolding, Oberbayern. In the late 1930s and early 1940s he also completed the Siebel factory in Halle an der Saale, a large-scale work of modern architecture. In 1947 he became a professor at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna.

• Welzenbacher, Lois
  • Austria, §II, 5: Architecture, after c 1890
  • Uhl, Ottokar