Deep in the Styrian hills of Austria, Schloss Hollenegg rises from the forest like a fairy-tale apparition: towers, courtyards, Renaissance arcades, layers of history folded into one another. But unlike so many aristocratic estates frozen in time, Hollenegg is alive with contemporary energy. Under the stewardship of Alice Stori Liechtenstein, it has become one of Europe’s most intriguing cultural projects: a living dialogue between heritage and design, past and future.
A House with Centuries of Memory
Schloss Hollenegg traces its origins to the 12th century. Expanded in the Renaissance and reshaped in the Baroque period, it remains one of Austria’s few privately inhabited castles. Its architecture carries the strata of history: Gothic fortifications, Renaissance loggias, Baroque plasterwork, 19th-century additions. To walk through its rooms is to move through epochs — frescoes giving way to wood-paneled salons, vaulted kitchens opening onto arcaded courtyards.
Yet for all its grandeur, Schloss Hollenegg has resisted the fate of becoming merely a monument. It is still a family home — and more importantly, a platform for ideas.
Design as Cultural Mission
When Italian-born design curator Alice Stori Liechtenstein married into the family and moved into Schloss Hollenegg, she saw its potential not as a relic but as a stage. In 2015, she founded Schloss Hollenegg for Design, an initiative to support emerging designers while revitalizing the castle as a site of cultural production.
Each year, a curated exhibition transforms the historic interiors, placing contemporary design in direct dialogue with centuries-old furniture and architecture. Themes have ranged from “Slow” to “Legacy,” “Ad Mensam” (on dining), and “East to West.” The juxtapositions are striking: a sleek 3D-printed chair beside a Renaissance cabinet; a ceramic installation beneath frescoed ceilings. The effect is not decorative but intellectual, prompting questions about continuity, innovation, and the role of design in shaping cultural memory.
Residencies and Creative Energy
At the heart of Schloss Hollenegg’s program are its design residencies. Emerging designers are invited to spend time in the castle, absorbing its history and environment, and producing work in response. The results are often poetic: objects that speak to ritual, craft, and sustainability, filtered through the atmosphere of an ancient house.
By providing not just funding but context, the castle offers what few institutions can: time, space, and a sense of continuity. It is both incubator and archive, a place where new work becomes part of an ongoing story.
The Aesthetics of Juxtaposition
The brilliance of Schloss Hollenegg lies in its refusal to separate the contemporary from the historic. Unlike a white-walled gallery, its exhibitions embrace friction. Modern design pieces are not isolated but set against carved oak, damask walls, and Baroque gilt. This creates a visual tension that heightens both: the contemporary becomes sharper, the historic more alive.
It also reflects a broader truth: design has always been about continuity. The objects we make today will one day be relics; the relics we preserve were once radical. Schloss Hollenegg insists that to care for history is not to seal it off but to allow it to keep conversing.
Past Exhibitions at Schloss Hollenegg for Design
- 2023 – Legacy: Exploring how objects embody continuity, memory, and the transmission of values.
Read more - 2022 – East to West: A cross-cultural dialogue on exchange, trade, and the blending of traditions.
Read more - 2021 – Ad Mensam: Centered on the rituals of the table, from dining to gathering, and the design of communal life.
Read more - 2020 – What Now?: Reflections on crisis and resilience in uncertain times.
Read more - 2019 – Substantia: An inquiry into the materials that define design, from wood and stone to digital matter.
Read more - 2018 – Wood Land: A celebration of wood in design, from tradition to experimentation.
Read more - 2017 – Slow: An exploration of time, patience, and craftsmanship in a culture of acceleration.
Read more
A European Model
Schloss Hollenegg has quietly become a model for how historic estates can redefine themselves in the 21st century. Rather than becoming luxury hotels or closed-off monuments, they can serve as cultural platforms — custodians of heritage, yes, but also laboratories for the future.
The castle’s annual design exhibition has gained international recognition, drawing curators, collectors, and critics from across Europe. Yet it remains intimate: a family-run initiative in a corner of Austria, committed less to spectacle than to substance.
TL;DR
Schloss Hollenegg is not just about preserving the past or showcasing the new. It is about the continuity of culture — how objects, spaces, and ideas survive by being reinterpreted. In its halls, you feel history not as weight but as resonance, alive with the energy of design today.
In a world that often fetishizes either novelty or nostalgia, Schloss Hollenegg offers a rarer possibility: a home where the two meet, and in their meeting, generate something enduring.
Discover more at: http://www.schlosshollenegg.at
My World of Interiors 