Messner Mountain Museum, Plan de Corones, South Tyrol, Italy, project: Zaha Hadid, Patrik Schumacher
The sixth and final Messner Mountain Museum, all founded by the famous mountaineer in six different locations in the South Tyroland Bellunese regions to pay tribute to the mountains, officially opened on a mountain peak of Plan de Corones in Alto Adige at a height of 2275 m above sea level.
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Designed by Zaha Hadid, the museum is built right into the heart of the mountain, emerging from the rocky ground in the form of three curving structures that look rather like “telescopes” made of fibre-reinforced concrete and glass projecting over the striking landscape of the great mountain walls of the Dolomites and Alps.
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The use of high-performance concrete enabled the creation of free forms in any shape or pattern. The outlines of these structures, built according to parametric guidelines, were constructed using gigantic polystyrene moulds cast with layers of concrete alternated with fibreglass to provide extremely high stability combined with extremely slender forms.
© Werner Huthmacher
The sculptural nature of the structures built in this way combines neatly with the material substance and colour patterns of the rock, without interfering structurally with the landscape.
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The inside of the underground museum draws on the same notions of free and winding forms: the stairways, like waterfalls, connect together the three exhibition levels focusing on developments in modern Alpine mountaineering over the last 250 years.
© Werner Huthmacher
The building also meets the highest standards of energy efficiency consuming less than 30 kW/m2-a-year (class A CasaClima). A thermal blanket fully enveloping the construction incorporates triple-glazed windows to provide maximum protection.
© Werner Huthmacher
