Snøhetta Envisions a New Home for Ötzi the Iceman on the Virgl Mountain in Northern Italy
Snøhetta’s proposal for a new Museum Quarter in Bolzano will give “Ötzi the Iceman” a new home. The distinctive building will be located on top of the prominent Virgolo/Virgl mountain, overlooking the South Tyrolean capital of Bolzano in Northern Italy.
The Museum Quarter is intended to accommodate museum spaces for the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology and the Municipal Museum of Bolzano as well as exhibition spaces for Ötzi the Iceman. The 5,300-year-old glacier mummy is a renowned archaeological sensation: the prehistoric man had been preserved in ice at an elevation of 3,210 meters. In 1991, Ötzi was found, fortuitously, with his clothing and equipment still intact, providing a unique glimpse into the life of a man of the Copper Age.
The building blends into the surrounding topography and extends the mountain terrain. Together, the elongated museum structure and the ring-shaped station form an ensemble. Arriving from the station, visitors can enter both museums through an open space on the roof and a joint foyer. The roof terrace of the station and the top of the new Museum Quarter building will provide magnificent views of the city and the surrounding landscape, serving as both a meeting point and an arena.
In 2015, the Signa Group hosted an international competition for a new cable car to transform this abandoned space next to the city center into a place for leisure and inspiration. With Snøhetta’s competition-winning proposal for the cable car, visitors can reach the top of Virgl Mountain in about seven minutes from the city center.
Together with the Bolzano cable car structure, also designed by Snøhetta, the new Museum Quarter will serve as a terrace for the city’s inhabitants. As a new landmark for the area, this elevated public space will still be perceived as being part of the city given its proximity to the center of Bolzano and the accessible cable car connection.
