Many elements come together to create the internationally respected Vorarlberg architecture, which will be on show in Dublin next week

DRIVING UP the mountain to St Anton, in Austria, a couple of years ago I saw a remarkable building sitting on the main road. It wasn't iconic, or showing off.

It was competent, assured and beautiful, the side elevation titled for a touch of dynamism, its shingled face seemed to have dropped from the pine trees rising up the hill beside it, 20 vast panes of glass sat flush with the shingles, and the entrance stairs were in clanking galvanised metal beneath an overhang supported by red girder-like columns.

These talked of the ski lifts further up the mountain and many other on-piste structures, attached to Alps by large metal pins. And that was the building's strength, its nod to the surrounding scene, indigenous materials, and design from the past and the future.

One of the most astonishing things about it is that it is a supermarket, indeed you can sip a coffee within and gaze up snowy escarpments through a wall of glass. So civilized.

When a country takes care of its supermarket design - and this isn't necessarily an expensive structure - you know that it bothers about its buildings.

I was back in the region last summer cycling around Lake Constance and there again, dotted among the trad chalets and neat, perfectly plastered peaked houses were exquisite timber houses with sensitive detailing and well placed overhangs creating rain and snow proofing or sheltered outdoor spaces.

It is strange that a country which seems as steeped in tradition as Austria is at the edge of new design movements - until you remember the likes of Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos, author of Ornament and Crime.

Architecture in the environs of Lake Constance (the Bodensee in local parlance), in the Vorarlberg region of Austria, has become so well known that, at any one time, about 85 per cent of the guests of the 200-bed Martinspark Hotel by architects Baumschlager Eberle in the design-rich town of Dornbirg, are architects on tour.

Just 30 years ago there were about 30 architectural practices in this area but this has grown to 150 now in the Vorarlberg region, known collectively as the Vorarlberger Baushcule, with practices such as Baumschlager and Eberle and Dietrich

Untertrifaller gaining an international reputation.

Such practices began with backing of clients who also wanted a new type of building and some architects formed co-ops to make homes for teachers and other professionals who were sympathetic to new ideas.

And it is a co-operative spirit - between architects, clients, builders and authorities - that has been the making of Vorarlberg architecture.

Both the Vorarlberg public and the authorities have become accepting of such contemporary architecture but, as in many cases, it was not always thus.

"In the beginning it was a struggle," says Marina Hämmerle, director of the Vorarlberger Architeketur Institut who will be giving a talk in Dublin next week.

"When this handful of architects began with different ideas, in the 1960s, influenced by Scandinavian and Swiss architecture, it was difficult to get planning permission,because a lot of mayors and people in general did not like it."

This changed, she says with some new staff in the Department of Urbanism and Land in Vorarlberg. "There were really smart people integrated into that department and they had a different attitude. The mayor defended this type of architecture, which was very important on an administrative level."

The Vorarlberg architectural style grew through the 1970s and 1980s, with a new generation of people looking for such buildings and the energy crisis prompting innovative design.

"It was clear that architects had to deal with energy efficiency," says Hämmerle, "and architects started with some simple concepts, such as housing projects with big winter gardens between buildings to capture the sun.

"They also minimised the surface of buildings and began to insulate them or using timber in a way to get better u-values."

A handful of architects started to dedicate themselves completely to energy efficient architecture but, at the same time, concentrated on appearance.

"Baumschalager and Eberle were always interested also in aesthetics and façade design," she says.

It was the simple design, the energy efficiency and that spirit of co-operation that brought recognition of this style. "The architecture is very much linked to facilities and structure in Vorarlberg, such as good craftsmanship," says Hämmerle. "The culture of cooperation has shown that good things happen only if the people participating are working well together and search for techniques and innovative ways of making architecture.

"This is not possible if it just comes from architects, it also requires technicians, planning and good carpenters who are willing to try new construction typologies."

That is why architects, such as Hämmerle and Eberle say that, while other countries can learn from the Vorarlberg style, they won't be able to export it wholesale but can instead learnfrom its ethos.

The style began to get international recognition in the 1990s when the media took note, initially in neighbouring Germany.

More recently an exhibition has toured Europe, visiting Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg, Spain and France. So far 70,000 people have seen it and its next stop is Ireland.

"People in Vorarlberg are much more aware of contemporary architecture now," says Hämmerle and that is spreading.

• The Constructive Provocation exhibition on new architecture and sustainable planning in Vorarlberg, Austria opens in the Ballymun Civic Centre on April 3rd at 5pm (until 1st May). Giving talks at the opening are Marina Hämmerle; Much Untertrifaller of Dietrich

Untertrifaller and Andreas Cukrowicz of cukrowicz nachbaur architekten.  Tel: 01 222 5742.