Hangar-7 in Salzburg, owned by Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz, is not a hangar in a traditional sense but rather a multifunctional building with a collection of historical airplanes, helicopters and Formula One racing cars. It houses a restaurant, two bars, a lounge and aircraft, and is open to the public. It includes the Michelin starred restaurant Ikarus.
By the late 1990s there was no longer enough space for the rapidly expanding Flying Bulls fleet, originally based at Innsbruck Airport. This sowed the seed of a plan to erect a hangar at Salzburg Airport. The time had also arrived when the heretofore loose association of pilots and mechanics needed to be brought under a common roof, which led to the “Flying Bulls” being founded in 1999. Since then the Flying Bulls’ technically and visually perfect aircraft have become popular participants at air shows and an attraction at any type of aviation event.
Much of the fascination of Hangar-7 lies in its architecture. If you are standing inside the vaults of Heaven seem to open up above the historic aircraft and exhibits. If you look at the construction from outside, the similarity to a wing which radiates uncommon dynamism and weightlessness is striking, despite the 1,200 tonnes of steel and 380 tonnes of special glass used in the construction.
The 40 metre-long entrance and two cylindrical towers, providing space for offices, lounges and a restaurant, were cut into the elliptical glass shell. It presented Salzburg architect Volkmar Burgstaller with enormous static challenges as far as the supporting structure was concerned, because the steel supports were ultimately supposed to be as slim as possible. A complex static engineering concept, which met all the specifications and requirements, was finally developed using specially written 3-D simulation software.
[caption id="attachment_153918" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Olavsvern Naval Submarine Base[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]You can't very well take over the world from your parent's basement, now can you? No, a proper arch-nemesis need...
