The Dolomites feature some of the most varied mountain environments in the Alps and this is reflected in some of the architecture. Of all the apartments and hotels we have stayed in, the South Tyrol has some of the most modern and high-quality accommodation sitting side by side with farms and medieval buildings. It seems the Tyrolleans are not afraid of the modern.
Just outside the old town of Bruneck, a cable car takes you to the Plan de Corones-Kronplazt, the top of the Kronplazt ski area, where you will find Concordia 2000, a peace bell, the Lumen Photography Museum with a cafe and the Messner Mountain Museum.
The Messner Museum is a futuristic building built by Zaha Hadid Architects that overhangs the mountainside, its concrete structure blends with the jagged limestone peaks of the surrounding Dolomites. At 1,000 square meters, the museum is arranged over several levels to reduce its footprint. During construction, 4,000 cubic meters of earth and rock were excavated and then replaced above and around the completed structure – immersing the museum within Mount Kronplatz and helping to maintain a more constant internal temperature. The wide windows allow natural light to penetrate deep within the museum, drawing visitors forward through the interior to the panoramic windows and viewing terrace.
The majority of the museum’s exterior and interior panels are made from concrete, with a formwork of tapered surfaces used to generate the peaks and abutments of the exterior panels that convey the rock and ice formations of the surrounding landscape. Almost 400 internal and external panels were prefabricated, with the more complex curved elements created in a process of spraying layers of high-performance fibre-concrete into moulds carved from CNC-milled foam using the architect‘s 3D model.
The Messner Mountain Museum Corones is one of six museums carrying the name of Reinhold Messner - the first person to summit all 14 mountains over 8,000 meters and the first solo climber of Everest. Additionally, he holds the distinction of being the first person to summit Mount Everest without the use of supplemental oxygen.
The Corones Museum is dedicated to mountain climbing and exploration and features a selection of items from books to ice axes to photos that tell the story of traditional mountaineering from Messner's perspective. The museum is small but houses an impressive-sized collection.
“The idea is that visitors can descend within the mountain to explore its caverns and grottos, before emerging through the mountain wall on the other side, out onto the terrace overhanging the valley far below with spectacular, panoramic views.”Zaha Hadid