BORG Innsbruck

The BORG Innsbruck is a federal upper-level secondary school in Innsbruck, Austria. It stands in the Fallmerayerstrasse, a short walk from the Anichstrasse and Maximilianstrasse. The building was completed in 1877 as the first grand Gründerzeit structure in this part of the city. The school’s history reaches back to 1766, when it opened as a normal primary school training future teachers. In 1819 it became a model primary school, and fifty years later it was renamed the Imperial-Royal Teacher Training Institute. The present Neorenaissance building, designed by architect F. Schöck, replaced the old quarters in 1877. Its symmetrical E-shaped plan and rich façade with corner pilasters and continuous cornices reflect the architectural ambitions of the late 19th century. Visitors enter through a 1950s porch into a vaulted entrance hall adorned with murals by Max Spielmann showing children reading, writing and playing. The main staircase features three flights of marble steps and wooden, marbleised balusters. At the first landing hangs a life-size wooden crucifix by Josef Staud, while the opposite wall carries a 1958 mosaic of the Virgin of Mercy by Richard Kurt Fischer. The rear of the building opens onto a festival hall with a coffered ceiling and four round-arched windows, lit by vaulted corridors throughout.