Kronplatz, in South Tyrol in northern Italy, is unusual among ski resorts for the contemporary architecture installed at its summit, including the Messner Mountain Museum Corones, designed by star architect Zaha Hadid and opened in 2015, a striking concrete and glass structure built directly into the mountainside and dedicated to the history of mountaineering. The museum was commissioned by Reinhold Messner, the South Tyrolean climber widely regarded as one of the greatest mountaineers of the 20th century, and forms part of a network of museums he established across the region.

South Tyrol’s distinct bilingual, Italian-and-German culture runs through Kronplatz as much as anywhere else in the region, a legacy of the area’s transfer from Austria-Hungary to Italy after the First World War, and the resort’s own name is used in both its Italian form, Plan de Corones, and its German one, Kronplatz, largely interchangeably.

A Peak Sacred to Local Legend Long Before Skiing Arrived

Local legend holds that Kronplatz, whose name translates roughly as Crown Place, was once the site where regional rulers were crowned, a tradition whose historical accuracy is difficult to verify but which has become deeply embedded in how the mountain is understood locally, giving the peak a symbolic weight beyond its recreational use. The mountain was already a significant local landmark for South Tyrolean farming communities long before its development as a ski area beginning in the mid-20th century.

Kronplatz’s slopes are known within the skiing world for being unusually wide and consistently groomed, a design choice that has made the resort particularly popular with intermediate skiers, a reputation distinct from the steeper, more technical terrain found elsewhere in the wider Dolomites region.

Painting a Summit Where Architecture Meets Alpine Ridge

Kronplatz’s dramatic modern architecture set against the layered peaks of the Dolomites gives a watercolourist a striking contrast of built form and natural ridge line to work with. We’ve captured that setting in our own Kronplatz Watercolor Print, painted first by hand and printed to order on archival paper, a small piece of Italy for a wall at home.

Crowned by legend long before it was crowned by a museum, Kronplatz remains a mountain that has found more than one way to draw people to its summit.