Internationales Studentenhaus Innsbruck

Introduction

ISH provides accommodation for 670 students attending a university or college in Innsbruck and its surroundings. From the beginning, ISH has developed an international orientation, and in some years more than a dozen different nationalities are to be found there, although the majority naturally come from Austria and the neighbouring countries.

All accommodation units have a bath or shower with toilet and a kitchen. The main building also contains a number of communal areas and rooms for leisure activities. The main building is located at Rechengasse 7. The annexes are located at Rechengasse 1, Rechengasse 3 and Hormayrstrasse 12.

Location

ISH occupies a central location, with downtown Innsbruck and the historical Old Town in walking distance and direct access to the promenade and cycle path on the banks of the River Inn. There is one bus stop opposite ISH and a tram and bus interchange about 500 m away.

Universities

Most institutions of further education in Innsbruck and its surroundings are within easy reach of ISH. The main building of Innsbruck University, with its Law and Humanities Faculties and some of the departments of the Natural Science Faculty are next door to it. And it is less than a five minutes’ walk to the Medical University, the new Chemistry and Pharmacy building, the University and Regional Library of Tyrol and Training Centre West (AZW) with its university of applied science programmes in healthcare (FH Gesundheit Tirol).

Within a radius of fifteen minutes on foot lie the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, the Catholic Theological Faculty, the Department of Botany and Management Center Innsbruck (MCI). And it is just a short bus or tram ride to the Technical Faculty, the Department of Biology, the University Sports Institute (USI), the Tyrol College of Education (PHT), the Tourism College, the Media College and the Health and Life Sciences University (UMIT) in Hall in Tirol.

The company

ISH is run by Internationales Studentenhaus gemeinnützige GmbH. The company is owned by the Austrian federal authority with a 25 percent shareholding, and by the Tyrolean regional and Innsbruck municipal authorities, the regional authorities of Vorarlberg, Salzburg and Upper Austria, and the Tyrolean Chamber of Commerce, which each hold a one-eighth share in the company. Another partner is the German Friends of Innsbruck Universities Association in Munich, which only holds a one-thousandth share in the company but is an invaluable patron of ISH in terms of both moral and material support.

History

Student accommodation problems in the 1930s

In the 1930s it was very difficult for students to find accommodation in Innsbruck, with a growing student body on the one hand and a general shortage of rooms on the other. There was a student hostel adjoining the university, but with just one hundred beds it was much too small and had no common rooms. In 1931, University Rector August Haffner found clear words to describe the problem: “The student hostel is merely a provisional timber-framed building with a useful life that cannot be expected to exceed another ten years.”

With the outbreak of the 2nd World War, however, plans for the construction of a new student hostel had to be shelved. The problem of accommodation for students was exacerbated by bomb damage suffered during the war, and the situation deteriorated further in the second half of the 1940s when Innsbruck developed into a major university city attracting more and more students from home and abroad. The city also became increasingly popular with tourists, which made it increasingly attractive to let rooms to wealthy tourists rather than students.

Plans and delays

University Rectors Hugo Rahner and Gustav Sauser worked hard to improve the accommodation situation for students, but it was not until their successor Eduard Reut-Nicolussi was in office that the plans were finally implemented. On 15 February 1952 “Internationales Studentenhaus” was established on a non-profit basis and in July of the same year was officially recognised by the Tyrolean Regional Government as a non-profit housing organisation.

By 1955 the company had raised the capital needed to construct the first building, but the planned location on a plot of land between the university and Blasius-Hueber-Strasse was no longer available as the Tyrolean Office of Public Works chose to reserve the site for future extensions to the university itself. As an alternative, a plot of land in Rechengasse was proposed and accepted. But work on the six-storey building proved very difficult because of the poor load-bearing capacity of the foundation soil and the need to excavate the clay and mud strata to remove the remains of a rack from the days of river logging operations. That led to a cost overrun and further delays before the building could be completed.

Extensions and renovations from 1958 to 1998

In 1958 the first students moved into their rooms at ISH. Demand was high, and up to a thousand applications for accommodation had to be rejected in the following years. In 1959 plans were therefore drawn up for an additional tract, which was constructed with great urgency starting in 1961. In December 1963 the whole ISH complex, with the capacity to house 468 students, was inaugurated and – thanks above all to the generosity of Max Kade, a German-born US businessman in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries and an international patron of science – became the unencumbered property of ISH.

At the beginning of the 1970s a further extension was added to ISH when an adjoining building was demolished to make way for a new tract to accommodate 91 students. The next step was the acquisition of an old building at Rechengasse 1, which had a storey added, the facades renovated and the windows replaced, and in 1980/81 four studios were purchased at Rechengasse 3. Thanks to a legacy received in 1985 from Consul Hanns Bisegger, an industrialist from Bielefeld, another eight studios were acquired at Rechengasse 3, three at Hormayrstrasse 12 and also eight parking spaces for use by students. In the same year work started on a loft conversion project at Rechengasse 1, which created two shared apartments for a total of twelve students. From 1986 to 1996 all four buildings benefitted from continuous refurbishment and the installation of such amenities as telephone and cable television.

General refurbishment starting in 1998

In view of the effects of decades of intensive use of the buildings and the higher standards expected of student accommodation in the meantime, the Supervisory Board gave its approval for a general refurbishment in 1996. The work, which started in 1998, involved thorough renovations to two tracts, reconstruction of the oldest part of the building and rehabilitation of the fourth tract. In the four years from 1998 to the summer of 2002, accommodation for 400 students was renovated and total capacity increased for a further 270.

Additional roles

Prior to the general refurbishment in 1998, ISH was also made available for various functions in addition to its role as a student residence. These activities were doubly useful: for image-building for ISH and as a source of finance for cost-intensive construction work.

Use of the residence as a hotel for representatives of the press during the Winter Olympic Games in 1964 and 1976 was a particularly striking example of the business acumen of the ISH management and made a significant contribution to the finances required for various construction projects. 450 journalists from all over the world reported on the Olympic events from their base in the converted student residence.

Summer hotel operations were another source of useful finance. From the beginning of the 1960s until the first phase of the general refurbishment, ISH let rooms in cooperation with tourist offices and agents and local hotels during the summer vacations. ISH was run as a bed and breakfast hotel for individual visitors and groups and was awarded 2½ stars by the Österreichischer Fachverband der Beherbergungsbetriebe.

At the beginning of the 1980s annual shoe industry trade shows were held on the premises of ISH at which manufacturers presented their new collections in parallel with the Innsbruck Autumn Trade Fair. These trade shows attracted fifty to seventy shoe manufacturers from Austria, Germany and Italy.

Facilities

Rooms

In addition to accommodation units with bath and kitchen for one person, ISH also has a number of apartments for two to six persons, who share the hall, bath and kitchen but have a room of their own. There are also some studios and small apartments and barrier-free units for one or two persons each as well.

The main building has a communications room with several PC workstations, a winter garden, two terraces and a garden. There are laundry rooms with coin-operated washing machines and driers as well.

ISH also has seminar and conference facilities. With two seminar rooms for up to thirty participants each, a foyer with a cloakroom and a small kitchen.

Parking

As in most parts of Innsbruck, the streets around ISH are in a short-term parking zone where charges apply. Residents can rent parking spaces in the grounds of ISH or in its basement car park. For bicycles there are both cycle shelters and a lockable storage room in the basement.

Leisure facilities at ISH

There are several rooms for leisure activities e.g. table-tennis, billiard, fitness rooms, four music rooms, a mediation room, TV-lounges and a party room.

Security and environmental protection

Security

A team of porters is on duty at the entrance 24 hours a day. All residents have their own lockable letter box. Winter sports equipment can be stored on ski racks and bicycles in the lockable storage room in the basement.

Environmental protection

Waste separation rules apply in the accommodation units and all generally accessible areas in the interest of correct disposal and recycling. Solar collectors located on the roof supply almost all the energy required to produce warm water from May to October. The buildings are equipped with a hot air recovery system to reduce external energy requirements. Clean drinking water is supplied to all rooms with the help of a legionella control system.

Friends and sponsors of ISH

Max Kade

In the construction and initial extension phase in the 1960s, the then Director of ISH, Professor Karl Ilg, asked numerous institutions and individuals to consider providing financial support. The only positive response from a private individual came from Max Kade, a Swabian living in New York, who donated the sum of ATS 2.5 million (approx. €182,000) from his foundation.

As a successful businessman and owner of one of the biggest chemical and pharmaceutical operations in the USA, he set up the Max Kade Foundation in 1994 with the aim of promoting the spiritual development of young students and international understanding. The Max Kade Foundation helped finance student hostels in the USA, Germany and Switzerland, as well as a number of libraries, refectories and various other facilities dedicated to science. The Max Kade Foundation continues to support ISH to this day.

Consul Hanns Bisegger

Professor Hanns Bisegger was a generous sponsor of ISH. In 1985 the industrialist from Bielefeld left several properties to ISH in his will, namely eight studios at Rechengasse 3, seven studios at Hormayrstrasse 12 and eight parking spaces. These properties were integrated in the ISH development concept and still form part of the ISH offering today.

Anthony Girvan

In 1985 a loft conversion was performed at Rechengasse 1, creating two shared apartments for a total of twelve students. Anthony Girvan supported the project with an interest-free loan of ATS 500,000 (approx. €36,300). Anthony Girvan was a “very wealthy individualist”; he made the loan conditional on reserving the new apartments for use by vegetarians.

Partnerships and public figures

UNO Summer School of the University of New Orleans

Since 1976 close ties have developed between ISH and the University of New Orleans. Professor Gordon “Nick” Mueller, founder of the UNO-Innsbruck partnership, selected Innsbruck as the venue for a summer school of the University of New Orleans. Mueller first came to Innsbruck as a student when he worked as press officer for IBM Austria at the 1964 Winter Olympic Games, and what he saw persuaded him that the city would be an ideal base for the first European summer school run by an American university. For 25 years, up until the general refurbishment, ISH made a key contribution to the success of the UNO Summer School, accommodating a total of over 7000 students enrolled in this elite university programme.

UNO-Innsbruck Academic Year Abroad (AYA)

ISH is the exclusive partner for accommodation to the AYA programme (University of New Orleans - Innsbruck Academic Year Abroad, University of New Orleans in Innsbruck, Austria). In both winter and summer, students of the University of New Orleans spend a semester abroad and during that time are accommodated at ISH.

US Ambassador Kathryn Hall

In the framework of the annual programme run by the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, whose students were housed at ISH from 1964 to 2009, the then US Ambassador to Austria, Kathryn Hall, visited the Notre Dame students in Innsbruck in October 1998.

Other summer schools

ISH has also provided accommodation for other summer schools run by American universities:

Would you believe it?

Accommodation for vegetarians

In order to obtain an interest-free loan of ATS 500,000 (approx. €36,300) for a loft conversion project, ISH had to undertake to reserve the accommodation created for vegetarians. The sponsor made a point of verifying compliance with this condition by inspecting the kitchens himself.

Loot in the kitchen

In the summer of 1986 there was a bank robbery near ISH. Shortly afterwards a student found a package containing ATS 23,000 (approx. €1,700) in one of the shared kitchens, and the money was identified as being part of the loot from the robbery. For her honesty, the student received a reward from the bank.

Royal visit

The people in the ISH office were very surprised when they received an application for accommodation from an African student, who had given his father’s occupation on the form as “king”. The application was processed in the normal way, and the student duly moved into ISH. A few months later a stately figure was seen striding through the courtyard of the student residence wearing a crown and carrying a sceptre – The student’s parents had arrived for a visit. The father really was the king of an African tribe. Following the first son, the king sent two more sons to study in Innsbruck and they all found accommodation at ISH.