Etyeki Kúria Winery

While designing Etyeki Kúria Winery, our greatest challenge was to place a building, which contains the complex functional program of a modern winery and visitors’ centre, on a vine hill, where small press houses determine the scale of the built environment.

Eventually an exciting, articulated building mass was created with the playful combination of traditional, archetypical roofs that blends well with the architectural character of the region and preserves the historical background of its environment.

BORD Architectural Studio was commissioned to design, as the basis of a complex development, a completely new, modern, iconic building, integrating the small-scale cellar and the press house that already existed on the site. Due to the sloping terrain, we had the opportunity to place the different functions on two floors. Production takes place on the lower level, which is sunk into the hillside, thus creating a base for the catering areas including the representative, panoramic rooms of tasting and classifying wines. Above the ground only a playful group of smaller buildings can be found with a panoramic view on the vineyards. No matter how traditional the shapes and volumes are, the details are modern and the composition is both playful and exciting, thus fitting the building between the surrounding small-scale press houses while providing a hint of contemporary atmosphere.

The small roofs floating above the hillside provide a unique appearance for the winery.

Crossing the road, the entrance is marked by a characteristic row of trees – a transition between the cultured landscape and the built environment. Arriving at a smaller garden and the protected entrance area, the house is fully transparent and opens towards the panoramic view. Spaces are alternating from smaller ones to the spacious representative functions. By this, the characteristic rhythm determining the outlook is perceptible from the inside as well.

The openings, which cut up the structures and the large glazed surfaces at the end of the building masses, disclose the view of the wineyard from the entire house.

The industrial areas are separated from the representative functions of the winery. The service entrance of the site is hidden, and it opens from the valley. However, throughout a glazed hallway, the whole process can be observed from the arrival of grapes into the old press house until the wine is bottled. Today, Etyeki Kúria is one of the leading wineries of the Etyek wine region. With a clear and logical design, the transparent, dynamic and characteristic, yet humble building is an iconic meeting point for the wine brand and its consumers.