Reinhold Messner Haus

TYPE Cultural, Education, Exhibition, Museum, Renovation, Public Space
STATUS Commission, Built
LOCATION Sesto, Italy
YEAR 2025
CLIENT 3 Zinnen Spa

DESIGN TEAM Andrea Bellentani, Eva Castro, Andrea Cubattoli, Niccolò Dal Farra, Carolina Forer, Ulla Hell, Holger Kehne, Peter Pichler, Chuan Wang
PHOTO CREDIT Florian Jaenicke
PRESS ENQUIRIES The Architecture Curator

Situated on Mount Helm in Sesto, at 2,000 meters above sea level, this is a site strongly shaped by ski operations and hiking tourism, yet offering a panoramic position with views of the Dolomites.

Rather than opting for a costly demolition of the aesthetically refined technical building, the proposal envisions its future transformation into a cultural heritage space, a place of encounter where themes of mountain nature and culture as well as sustainability and environmental protection are addressed. In line with an upcycling and recycling concept, dismantled building components are to be reused wherever possible, while demolition and removal without reuse are to be avoided as far as feasible.

The architecture of Plasma Studio integrates the structure with the landscape, reshaping the topography and establishing a new balance between the built environment and the natural surroundings.

As part of the intervention, smaller roof extensions are removed and replaced by a publicly accessible, expansive landscape roof. A new sculptural entrance, designed as a concrete tunnel, threads through this apparent topography and guides visitors into a foyer below. From there, the cultural circuit begins, conceived as a continuous pathway. The new glazed façade and the trapezoidal opening in the roof, originally conceived for the arrival of the cabins, preserve the building’s infrastructural character and transform it into an observation deck. The existing scene of the mountain range is being framed and integrated into the exhibition narrative, in which, alongside the personal legacy of Reinhold Messner, the Dolomites themselves play a central role.