The BadeHarpfe & new alpine architecture at the Tannerhof

The essentials at a glance

• The BadeHarpfe combines a Finnish sauna, a relaxation room, two fitness rooms, and the outdoor natural pool into a timber construction unit completed in 2025.
• A Harpfe is a traditional alpine structure made of vertical posts and horizontal poles used to dry hay and grain – common from Carinthia through East Tyrol to Slovenia.
• The outdoor natural pool measures 25 × 5 m, is naturally filtered, and is heated from April to October, with ice bathing available in winter, offering views between the Wendelstein and Sonnwendjoch mountains.
• Architect Florian Nagler has been working with the Tannerhof since 2007 based on the principle of Simple Building: as little as possible, as correctly as possible.
• The new alpine architecture ranges from the hut towers (2011) and the historic sauna cottage (1936) to the BadeHarpfe.

My hideaway in the mountains

A long timber building that follows the contour line. Vertical posts, horizontal beams, a protective roof – and in between, where hay once hung to dry, there is now water, warmth, and mountain views. The BadeHarpfe at the Naturhotel Tannerhof was built in 2025, and it does something that has always been characteristic of this place: it takes an ancient alpine form and gives it new meaning.

My hideaway in the mountains is the philosophy that underpins everything at the Tannerhof, and the BadeHarpfe is its latest chapter. Those who want to learn more about the hotel's architectural history can find it told in detail under the architecture of the house. This text takes a step to the side to look at the one structure that lends the house its name: the Harpfe.

What a Harpfe is

Before the BadeHarpfe was a bath, the Harpfe was a tool of agriculture. In the southern Eastern Alps – in Carinthia, East Tyrol, and western Slovenia – it has stood at the edge of meadows for centuries: a wooden structure with vertical posts and horizontal poles or boards over which freshly mown hay was hung so that wind and sun could dry it. A roof protects the open construction from rain and snow, allowing the harvest to be stored safely and dryly.

The Harpfe goes by many names. In some Carinthian valleys, it is called Köse, in the Mölltal Hilge, and in Slovenia kozolec for the single form and toplar for the double form. The term itself is old: the word Harpfe appears in sources as early as the 13th century. Its distribution area once stretched from Croatia through western Slovenia and parts of Styria to the upper Mölltal and into East and South Tyrol. A simple, clever form that achieves a lot with little material – and that is exactly why it fits the Tannerhof.

Because the Harpfe is essentially pure function: no decoration, no gestures, just what is necessary to let air flow through wood and hay. This attitude – as little as possible, as correctly as possible – is reflected in the house's new alpine architecture.

Florian Nagler and the principle of Simple Building

The architect responsible for the new alpine architecture at the Tannerhof is Florian Nagler, born in Bad Tölz and a professor at the Technical University of Munich. He has been working with the hotel since 2007, with the first major project completed in 2011. His planning principle is called Simple Building: as little as possible, as correctly as possible.

For Nagler, Simple Building is not just a gesture, but a researched approach. Since 2012, he has led a research project of the same name at the TU Munich, which resulted in the construction of three research houses in Bad Aibling – one made of wood, one of masonry, and one of lightweight concrete. The idea behind it: instead of controlling a building with complex building services, the construction method itself should ensure a stable indoor climate. Robust materials with thermal inertia, clever room proportions, correctly placed windows, and roof overhangs – resulting in less technology that can age and fail. Over two years, measurements in Bad Aibling showed a heating energy demand that was lower than the calculated expectations.

Nagler himself spoke about how much this type of building depends on collaboration at the Tannerhof: Building is a matter of trust. It is special at the Tannerhof: people say afterwards that it would never have turned out this way without the clients. The client is Burgi von Mengershausen, during the joint management phase with Roger Brandes. It is this combination of research, craftsmanship, and attitude that the Tannerhof understands as new alpine architecture – new, not modern, because the new here always connects to the old.

The Hut Towers: building up instead of out

Nagler’s first major project at the hotel was the Hut Towers in 2011: four slender wooden towers on the hillside, each with three double rooms of about 26 square meters. Solid wood, larch shingles, floor-to-ceiling glass doors, classic Bolich lamps – and a private outdoor seating area on every floor.

The core concept of the towers is both landscape-conscious and ecological: they grow upwards rather than outwards, ensuring that no alpine meadow is sealed off. Three compact units are stacked on top of each other, each with its own aesthetic and view of the valley. If you would like to learn more about the construction at the hotel, you can find it on the page about the architecture of the Tannerhof. The towers brought the hotel early recognition – including the German Timber Construction Award for building within existing structures and a place in the German Architecture Yearbook.

As different as the towers and the "Harpfe" (hay rack) may appear, they share the same logic: wood that supports and shows what it is. No cladding that pretends to be something it is not. This honesty of material is the common thread running through all the buildings at the Tannerhof.

The 2025 BadeHarpfe

Where the towers reach for the sky, the BadeHarpfe stretches out. As a long timber structure, it follows the contour line of the slope, featuring an archaically beautiful beam construction that clearly reveals its inspiration: the traditional hay rack. According to the hotel's press release from August 2025, it is the world's first BadeHarpfe.

Inside, a two-story open space unfolds in the center, suitable for celebrations, yoga, and community gatherings. Grouped around it is everything a bathing and sauna unit needs:

• A Finnish sauna at 85 °C, with panoramic windows overlooking the mountain scenery.
• A relaxation room with all-around glass and loungers, where your gaze can simply wander on.
• Two fitness rooms – one for strength, one for endurance.
• Showers and WCs, simple and designed with the same wood as the rest of the structure.

Florian Nagler captured the long design process of the BadeHarpfe in an image that fits this place well: It was like boiling something down – getting smaller and more appropriate all the time. Reduction as a method, not as a sacrifice. In the end, there is a building that claims nothing and yet offers so much.

The outdoor natural pool

The outdoor natural pool is part of the BadeHarpfe and serves as its open heart. 25 by 5 meters of stainless steel, naturally filtered, and heated from April to October – incidentally, powered by the hotel's own photovoltaics in the summer. In winter, the pool is used for ice bathing for anyone who wants to carry the hotel's sweat-laugh-dive ritual into the coldest months.

The best thing about the pool is not its length, but its view: it looks out into the distance between the Wendelstein and Sonnwendjoch mountains. You lie in the warm water, the mountains stand all around, and the day becomes quieter. Burgi von Mengershausen wanted exactly this for this place: Simply to sit here, to be here – without consciously noticing what is happening to you.

If you would like to combine the BadeHarpfe and the pool with saunas, baths, and treatments, you will find the right treatment options at the hotel. The magazine also tells the story of how the BadeHarpfe came to be and what the owner hoped to achieve with it in the BadeHarpfe.

The historic sauna cottage from 1936

But so that you don't get the impression that sweating at the Tannerhof is a recent invention: the historic sauna cottage dates back to 1936. It houses a Finnish sauna and a bio-sauna – and is also a small cabinet of curiosities.

The walls are embedded with original Art Nouveau tiles by Otto Wagner, once from the Steinhof in Vienna, along with old tiles from a church and replicas designed by Antonio Gaudí. A version of Gustav Klimt's The Kiss is set into the fireplace. Nothing here is new and nothing is loud, yet every square meter tells a story. Almost ninety years lie between the 1936 sauna cottage and the 2025 BadeHarpfe – and the same idea that a good place to sweat is more than just a cabin with a stove.

This is how old and new, high and low come together at the Tannerhof, as they like to say at the hotel. The retro future love of this place is not a pose, but a built reality: a sauna cottage from the thirties, hut towers from 2011, a BadeHarpfe from 2025 – and in between, the old linden tree, the mountain stream, and the alpine meadows that support it all.

Architecture that doesn't seek to impress

What unites the new alpine architecture at the Tannerhof is a restraint that has become rare. The buildings do not aim to impress; they aim to fit in—with the landscape, the materials, and the people who arrive here. Wood that looks like wood. Towers that don't take up meadow space. A bathing unit that owes its name to a hay-drying rack.

This approach has received numerous awards over the years, from the BDA Prize Bavaria for spatial impact and the German Timber Construction Award to the Architecture Nike for composition; the Blue Swallow eco-label represents the ecological side of this same philosophy. But the awards are not the point. The point is that you can bathe, sweat, and sleep here without the built environment ever getting in your way. Man, become essential – the inner philosophy of the house finds its quiet echo in this architecture.

Experience the architecture

If you would like to see the BadeHarpfe, the hut towers, and the historic sauna cottage with your own eyes, you will find a new alpine architecture at the Tannerhof nature hotel that makes no grand claims but delivers much: wood, mountain views, an outdoor natural pool between the Wendelstein and Sonnwendjoch, and a sauna cottage from the thirties. You can read more about the building's history at the architecture of the house; for a stay, the quick path is via an inquiry.