This Mountaintop Museum Is Not for the Faint of Heart

Culture with a side of death-defying heights.

Somewhere, someone has decided to take the whole “form follows function” thing very literally. The Messner Mountain Museums, a series of six structures celebrating the discipline of mountaineering, got their final installment just a few days ago. With buildings scattered across the mountain ranges of Italy, each is an architectural phenomenon, but the Museum Corones in South Tyrol, Italy is taking the franchise to new heights. Quite literally.

On a plateau of the mountain Kronplatz at over 7,400 feet high, the museum looks over a vast swath of the Italian countryside. While the majority of the structure is ensconced within the rock itself, a platform juts out with a terrifyingly see-through-looking walkway. Thanks but no thanks.

Inside, the museum features an exhibit to alpine mountain climbing within an interior of stark concrete. 

But maybe don’t look down.

Photos: Messner Mountain Museum