Page - 94 - in Nikola Tesla and the Graz Tech

94 The building complex of the electrical engineering institutes of Graz Univer- sity of Technology, erected around 1970 on the so-called Inffeld grounds, to- day consists of teaching and research institutes for high-voltage engineering, construction and operation of electrical installations and networks, electric drives and motors, energy management, high-frequency engineering, elec- tronics, communications engineering and wave propagation. Particularly interesting and striking, the high-voltage test hall was designed by architecture professors Hubert Hoffmann and Ignaz Gallowitsch and their staff and assistants at the time, Albin Bulfon, Heiner Hierzegger, Annemarie Hierzegger, Annemarie Obermann and Herrad Spielhofer. The high-voltage laboratory planned and built between 1965 and 1972 in the course of the construction of the entire institute building is the result of a competition in whose success Hubert Hoffmann’s employees played a major role. When the competition jury awarded the contract, Hoffmann hesitated to accept the commission. It was only at the insistence of his employees, some of whom were or are still active in teaching, that the extremely interesting assignment was accepted and the winning project realised. The architectural work of the high-voltage hall, marvelled at by many after its construction, fulfils one of the important quality criteria of architecture: the harmony of form, construction and function. Even the strictly cubic outer form, without any recognizable openings, allows a technical content to be easily deduced. The design principle is clearly legible. The load-bearing static construction of the hall is clearly visible on the outside of the building. Tubular profile steel truss frames cover the outer facing of the building. These steel truss frames, triangular in cross section, rest on points and are stiffened by diagonally ar- ranged slim steel tube profiles to absorb horizontal forces. Design principle