{"id":112168,"date":"2026-08-06T04:37:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T04:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/112168\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T04:37:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T04:37:16","slug":"in-the-italian-alps-the-storied-hotel-bella-vista-gets-a-woven-timber-clad-addition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/112168\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Italian Alps, the Storied Hotel Bella Vista Gets a Woven-Timber-Clad Addition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The nest of Gypaetus barbatus\u2014the Old World bearded vulture whose wingspan exceeds 9 feet\u2014is a sophisticated feat of construction. It is built with striking foresight, begun more than a hundred days before the eggs are laid, its load-bearing armature of dry branches spanning roughly 6\u00bd feet across. Ornithologists note that the work is shared between the sexes until the clutch arrives, when the pair turns from framework to lining\u2014wool, grass, moss, hide, gathered across several miles and mostly salvaged from earlier structures.\n<\/p>\n

\n In the Italian Stelvio National Park, among the many such nests wedged into Alpine rock, a considerably larger specimen has just appeared: the work of architect Matteo Thun. It is the new wing of the Hotel Bella Vista, founded in 1875 at the foot of the Ortler massif (12,812 feet), in the hamlet of Trafoi, a toponym from the Latin tres fontes, or three springs. To the south, three glaciers streak the peaks white. Three, again, are the cultural geographies converging here: South Tyrol, originally part of Austria ceded to Italy in 1919, though only a short drive from Lombardy or the Lower Engadine in Switzerland. Historic photographs show the original building as a whitewashed, pitch-roofed stone mass, set at 5,150 feet on one of the hairpin roads climbing to 9,050 feet. The Stelvio Pass dates from a few years after the Congress of Vienna (1815), built to link the Habsburg Empire with a Lombardy reclaimed from Napoleon. The hotel\u2019s Fremdenbuch (the guest register) lists notable names, such as Max Planck, in 1920, fresh off his Nobel Prize.\n<\/p>\n

\"Hotel<\/p>\n

\n \u00a0The addition is wrapped in a woven lattice of square timber members. Photo \u00a9 Daniel Merler\n<\/p>\n

\n A century on, tourism is another matter, and the Th\u00f6ni family\u2014who have managed the hotel for six generations\u2014commissioned Thun, a native of nearby Bolzano, to raise a comparable volume beside the original, extending toward the canyon below. The addition holds 24 rooms, double the original count, plus a wellness center. Though essentially an ordinary reinforced-concrete block, what distinguishes it is its envelope: a woven lattice of square timber members, each rotated 45 degrees, wrapping the building as both landscape camouflage and passive climatic buffer.\n<\/p>\n

\n The idea, Thun has said, traces to the vultures he watched circling as a boy\u2014a kind of revelation. Beyond flying gliders, he graduated in Florence in 1975 under Adolfo Natalini, founder of Superstudio, with a thesis for a flying machine unveiled to a Pink Floyd soundtrack. In 1981, with the Memphis group, he designed a line of postmodern ceramic coffeepots titled Rara Avis (Rare Bird), later exhibited in American museums.\n<\/p>\n

\n The timber envelope is a Thun signature; it recurs at his Vigilius Mountain Resort near Merano, Italy (2003), the Hugo Boss headquarters in Switzerland (2006), and the Carinthia Twin Towers in Austria (2009). Whether childhood memory translates convincingly into built form is a matter of vantage point. From afar, against climbing evergreens, it succeeds, as it does from within, where the lattice frames a shifting view while sheltering the room. Up close, though, the weave betrays a want of formal ambition\u2014little exploration of profile, joint, torsion, or density, the kind of refinement that timber construction elsewhere in South Tyrol and Switzerland has achieved in recent years. The grid also reveals a few less convincing details in the volume it wraps\u2014notably, the quite banal partitions between rooms.\n<\/p>\n

\n Chief among the project\u2019s concerns is the dialogue between old and new. From the valley, the two volumes read as near equals, each retaining, even sharpening, its own typological identity, joined by a connecting body set back enough to read as hinge rather than seam. From the opposite face, that same connector projects outward toward the meadows, trailed by reflecting pools and appurtenances that introduce a busier compositional register.\n<\/p>\n

\n This connecting volume is now the hotel\u2019s true fulcrum. Clad entirely in Alpine woods (Swiss pine, fir, oak), and featuring the new lounge bar, it opens onto twin panoramas through picture windows: north to the Austrian glaciers, south to the Engadine Dolomites. At its center hangs a dark modernist fireplace, suspended above a slab of quartzite, setting flame against distant ice. Christina Biasi-von Berg conceived the interior design, with furnishings in the white, red, and blue of local folk costume supplying contrast, echoed in the enormous photograph of an athlete in headlong descent through the snow. This is Gustav Th\u00f6ni, among history\u2019s great alpine skiers and the hotel\u2019s owner: four World Cup overall titles and countless trophies, now scattered throughout in vitrines that render the building something of a shrine to the 75-year-old. In the bar, where the cups cast gold, silver, and bronze reflections like an architectural substance, another shot presides: Th\u00f6ni with his \u201cValanga Azzurra\u201d (Blue Avalanche), the historic Italian ski team. He became a legend, his victories converting an elite pastime into a mass phenomenon.\n<\/p>\n


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\"Hotel
\n 1<\/p>\n

\n The suites marry contemporary spareness with Tyrolean craftsmanship (1, 2). Photos \u00a9 Daniel Merler<\/p>\n

\"Hotel
\n 2<\/p>\n

\n Back, though, to construction matters. Materials are local throughout: wood cut in January under the correct lunar phase, stone quarried nearby, and concrete aggregates drawn from the Trafoi stream. Tucked into the wing\u2019s corner sits the wellness center\u2014yoga rooms, saunas, a gym fitted with timber-clad equipment, an infinity pool open toward the canyon. It is precisely in this corner, where the building emerges from the rock, that the architecture might have reached for something more\u2014a sensory engagement with matter itself: consider, to cite a well-known case, Peter Zumthor\u2019s Therme Vals, where water and stone read as a geological narrative rather than conventional luxury.\n<\/p>\n

\"Hotel
\n 3<\/p>\n

\"Hotel
\n 4<\/p>\n

\n Interiors, including the lobby (3) and bar (4), offer cozy spots within the Alpine setting. A pool (5) and whirlpool tubs (6) bring a nautical mood to the mountains. Photos \u00a9 Daniel Merler<\/p>\n

\"Hotel
\n 5<\/p>\n

\"Hotel
\n 6<\/p>\n

\n The suites are among the project\u2019s most accomplished elements, marrying contemporary spareness with the \u201cpauper\u201d strain of Alpine building plus Tyrolean craftsmanship, such as the chairs with heart-shaped cutouts in the backrest. Among the finer details are timber alcoves open to the landscape\u2014\u201ccocoons with a view,\u201d says the architect. Even though we are in the mountains, an almost nautical mood prevails on the balconies\u2014sheltered by the \u201cnest\u201d and fitted with whirlpool tubs\u2014most of all above the canyon, where water rushes ceaselessly and the bearded vultures, in their own fashion, go on building.\n<\/p>\n

\"Hotel
\n \"Hotel<\/p>\n

Images courtesy Matteo Thun & Partners; click to enlarge<\/p>\n

Credits<\/p>\n

\n Architect:
Matteo Thun & Partners \u2014 Matteo Thun (founder); Antonio Rodriguez, Elisa Vago, Matteo Beretta, Boris Ulrich, Karola Gr\u00f6ger (design team)\n <\/p>\n

\n Consultant:
Bauteam (structural engineering and construction management)\n <\/p>\n

\n General Contractor:
Sch\u00f6nthaler A. & S\u00f6hne\n <\/p>\n

\n Client:
Th\u00f6ni Family\n <\/p>\n

\n Size:
129,000 square feet\n <\/p>\n

\n Cost:
withheld\n <\/p>\n

\n Completion:
May 2026\n <\/p>\n

Sources<\/p>\n

\n Flooring:
Alpenboden (wood); Fuchs (stone & tile)\n <\/p>\n

\n Pool & Saunas:
Hofer Group\n <\/p>\n

\n Outdoor Furniture:
Unopi\u00f9\n <\/p>\n

\n Fitness Equipment:
TechnoGym\n <\/p>\n

\n Whirlpools:
HotSpring\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The nest of Gypaetus barbatus\u2014the Old World bearded vulture whose wingspan exceeds 9 feet\u2014is a sophisticated feat of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[16],"tags":[50,3125,309],"class_list":["post-112168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alps","tag-alps","tag-hotels","tag-italy"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117046716002898119","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}