Austrian authorities have unveiled a design for turning the house where Adolf Hitler was born into a police station – while trying to make it unattractive as a pilgrimage site for people who glorify the Nazi dictator.
A design by Austrian architects Marte.Marte beat 11 competitors in an interior ministry tender, officials said on Tuesday. The refurbishment is expected to be completed around the end of 2022 and will cost about €5m (£4.5m).
The yellow corner house in the northern Austrian town of Braunau am Inn where Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 was taken into government control in 2016.
In 2017 Austria’s highest court ruled that the government could expropriate the building after its owner refused to sell it.
A suggestion it might be demolished was shelved, and the government announced in November that police would use the building. It will house the regional command and a police station.
“Some people might ask, is this the right use for this, putting the police in there? It is the downright most suitable use,” Karl Nehammer, the interior minister, said Tuesday.
“Why? The police are the guardians of basic liberties and freedoms. Police officers in training see themselves as partners of citizens and as those who protect freedom, the right to assembly and freedom of speech.”
The winning design takes a simple, modernising approach but doesn’t tamper with the substance of the original building.
The relatively modest three-level building was rented by Austria’s interior ministry since 1972 to prevent its misuse, and was sublet to various charitable organisations. It stood empty after a care centre for adults with disabilities moved out in 2011.
