Route 6 — on the road in the Alps

The Tim­melsjoch Road is one of the most beau­tiful pass roads  in the Alps and con­nects the Aus­trian pro­vince of Tyrol with the Italian pro­vince of South Tyrol. At an altitude of 2,500 metres, it is Aus­tria’s highest road border crossing. The ancient path has always repre­sented an intert­wining of the regions, with the Tim­melsjoch as the gateway to the south. Before the pass became a cul­tural expe­rience, it took visio­naries and pio­neers on both sides, as well as the skills of clever road engi­neers and archi­tec­tural desi­gners to create the Tim­melsjoch Expe­rience in its present form. The result is a high alpine road some­where between a dream and a transit route, between cas­cading hairpin bends and mas­terful archi­tecture against a majestic mountain backdrop.

Along the appro­xi­m­ately 30-kilo­metre-long pass road, six archi­tec­tural sculp­tures were erected in 2011 and 2018 at par­ti­cu­larly signi­ficant loca­tions in keeping with the land­scape. They frame it, emphasise the terrain, are striking land­marks and create a balance between visi­bility and modesty, between archi­tecture and the expe­rience of nature.

Werner Tscholl is an Italian architect from South Tyrol. He founded his office in Morter in Vinschgau in 1993. He gained inter­na­tional fame through his pro­jects for private resi­dences in South Tyrol. He also attracted attention with con­ver­sions of his­to­rical buil­dings such as Sig­mundskron Castle near Bolzano and com­mercial buil­dings such as the Tramin Winery.

The tour to the Tim­melsjoch was part of our multi-part road trip to modern Alpine archi­tecture in Italy and Austria with the High Alpine Road as the ideal link between the two worlds. The word Timmel has been traced back to the old Rhaeto-Romanic word tombl and denoted a hill. The pass was men­tioned in docu­ments in the 13th century as Thymels and was built as a mule track – too narrow or too steep for or carts or teams, but no problem for mules or donkeys. In Italian, the crossing is called Passo del Rombo and means “Pass of Thunder”. Plans for the con­s­truction of a road over the Tim­melsjoch had existed on the Aus­trian side since 1945, and the road link between the two countries was opened with its com­pletion in 1968. The road, which is subject to tolls and closed to trucks, is open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. from June to October, depending on the weather con­di­tions.

The route of the six shapes

In order to give the High Alpine Road a new image after forty years of exis­tence, the South Tyrolean pro­vincial government com­mis­sioned Tscholl and engineer Sieg­fried Pohl to develop a master plan for the design. The result is walk-through sculp­tures and buil­dings that provide infor­mation about the region’s nature, history, culture, society and economy. Five were com­pleted in 2011 and the sixth was added in 2018. Tscholl’s sculp­tures are mini­malist and mono­lithic. They are self-con­fident and at the same time appear reverent and humble before the omni­po­tence of the moun­tains. The con­crete of the struc­tures, which is mixed with colour pig­ments, is raw and the colouring refers to the respective rock at the various loca­tions.

Garnet, Telescope, Transit, Pass­museum, Smuggler and Walkway

Coming from Merano, South Tyrol, we stop at the first station: “Granat” in Moos in the Pas­seier Valley. The two struc­tures are modelled on the rock for­ma­tions of the moun­tains. The open form serves as a platform and offers a spec­ta­cular view of the village of Moos and the valley. The closed pavilion is an infor­mation space on the vege­tation and culture of the area. The “Fernrohr” is about 16 km away and is located above the road. Two large, walk-through tubes direct the view to the dra­matic mountain pan­orama with the three-thousand-metre peaks Hoher First and Gra­nat­kogel. The third station on the Italian side is the “Transit”. The bar­racks, built in 1930, are now a museum. The old building looks as if it has been dug into the rock and has been repaired with few modi­fi­ca­tions for its new function. The cool, clammy interior gives a good impression of the mammoth task at the time with pic­tures of road con­s­truction with inter­views with con­tem­porary wit­nesses. “Transit” was inau­gu­rated in 2018 to mark the road’s 50th anni­versary.

Sculp­tured state­ments and the Cross­point

The route from here to Austria is short: the “Pass­museum” stands at 2,509 metres directly on the national border and is the fourth stop. Just like “Transit”, the Pass­museum also shows the history of the Tim­melsjoch road. There are also archaeo­lo­gical finds. Like a recumbent menhir, it juts out over the edge of the rock and points in the direction of South Tyrol. A bold sculp­tured statement with a lot of sym­bolism.

The two other sculp­tures on the Aus­trian side are the “Schmuggler” and the “Steg”. The former is a walk-in con­crete cube with an ent­rance in the shape of a human figure. Here, the story of smuggling is told and with it the legends about the famous Ötztal Kra­xen­träger. These porters trans­ported 100 kilo­grams each way and with their skills they estab­lished an aspect of modern alpinism. The “Steg” in Hoch­gurgl hovers above a slope and pro­vides infor­mation about the gla­ciers as shapers of the land­scape and the history of sett­lement in the high alpine region

Here you will also find the “Top Mountain X‑Crosspoint”, which is a mul­ti­func­tional toll station, restaurant, museum and gondola station. Michael Brötz, the Aus­trian architect in charge, designed a curved building that refers to the regional-alpine  timber con­s­truction. With its organic, large-scale shape, the Cross­point con­trasts with Tscholl’s  mini­malist, angular con­tours.

We planned several hours for the Tim­melsjoch Expe­rience and chose the restaurant in the Cross­point as the end point of the tour. Helpful for the explo­ration of the route and the sculp­tures is cer­tainly the old moun­tai­neer’s greeting: “Take your time!”

Author: Jan Dimog, thelink.berlin

Photo credits: © Jan Dimog, thelink.berlin (Titelbild, 2, 3, 8) / © Hendrik Bohle, thelink.berlin (1, 4 — 7, 9 — 12) / © Heike Albrecht (13)

Author info:

Jour­nalist Jan Dimog runs a digital magazine on building culture tog­ether with architect Hendrik Bohle. On thelink.berlin they have been telling about their dis­co­veries in Europe for years, espe­cially about the con­nec­tions between people and archi­tecture.

When they are not on the road, they curate high-profile exhi­bi­tions, such as the tra­velling exhi­bition on Arne Jacob­sen’s archi­tecture.