Maxglan is a western district of Salzburg where the airport, a legendary brewery, a Red Bull aviation museum, and a piece of important interwar architecture all exist within walking distance. It is also where Hermann Bahr lived from 1912, gathering the cultural circle that helped create the Salzburg Festival.
The Story
Maxglan was a village west of Salzburg until 1935, when the city absorbed it and Gnigl in the same round of annexations. What was a separate community became a neighbourhood, and its older identity survives most clearly in the Altmaxglan core around the historic churches and in the tree-lined streets of 1920s residential development.
The Stiegl Brauwelt is the most visited institution in Maxglan and one of the more honest brewery visits in Austria. Stiegl moved to Maxglan in 1863 and has stayed. The brewery rebuilt after a fire in 1875 and survived two world wars; by 1948 it was producing normally again after the post-war slump. The Brauwelt, the public-facing part of the operation, runs tours and tastings and is the only place in Salzburg where you can understand the production history of the city's most persistent commercial institution.
Hangar 7 sits at the edge of Salzburg Airport and was built in 2003 to house the Red Bull collection of vintage aircraft and Formula 1 cars. The architecture is the thing: a glass-and-steel hangar designed by Volkmar Burgstaller that is as photogenic from outside as it is inside.
The Markuskirche on Ignaz-Rieder-Kai was designed by Clemens Holzmeister in 1926. Holzmeister was the most significant Austrian church architect of the interwar period, and the Markuskirche is a serious example of his approach: geometric, stripped-back, and attentive to light in a way that the baroque churches across the river are not.
Hermann Bahr settled in Maxglan in 1912, well before it was absorbed into the city. His house became a meeting point for writers and artists connected to the emerging Salzburg Festival idea, and his presence here is part of the reason Maxglan has a cultural history that goes beyond its function as an airport suburb.
The district also carries a darker history. During the Nazi period, a camp for Romani people was established at Gauswegstrasse; a memorial marks the site today.
Planning
Maxglan is accessible from central Salzburg by tram lines 1 and 3, and is walkable from the Altstadt in about 30 minutes. Hangar 7 and Stiegl Brauwelt are both ticketed attractions; the Brauwelt tour includes a tasting. The Markuskirche is open at regular hours. The airport is a 5-minute walk from the district centre.