MMM Roca

The autumn of 2024 will see the opening of the new and final MMM, located on Monte Elmo in Sesto. The Roca (Spanish and Ladin for ‘rock’) will tell the story of mountaineering from its beginnings in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains to today’s free soloing. As always, Reinhold Messner will be focusing on fears, near-death experiences and exposition – all parts of climbing enormous rock faces. The ‘Goddess of Protection’, a Himalayan bronze statue symbolising the safety measures that have been central to extreme rock and ice climbing for nearly 200 years, will stand at the heart of the museum.

3 Zinnen plc in the upper Val Pusteria is making the last Messner Mountain Museum possible by renovating and converting the old cable car station into an exhibition space together with architect Ulla Hell. Monte Elmo gains a cultural highlight, and the upcycling project is a beacon of sustainability: tourism infrastructure turned into a culture establishment.

“Even with the new use of the technical structure as an exhibition space, the rough character of the existing building should be preserved,” explains architect Ulla Hell. “On the other hand, it is the project's intention to create a surrounding area for the museum that is as quiet as possible, which is currently charged with many functions of the cable car operation. The building should blend well into the surrounding topography, and the main volume of the old station will be visually emphasized. The entire project development is in the balance of 'as little as possible and as much as necessary,' without giving up on a confident architectural language,” Hell concludes.