By Gondola Straight into King Laurin’s Crystal Palace
Renowned architect Werner Tscholl has skillfully and subtly integrated three cable car stations into the dramatic landscape of the Rosengarten, making them nearly invisible.
“It was immediately clear to me that I should interfere as little as possible with the uniqueness of this natural setting.”
When Werner Tscholl speaks about the mountain station in the Carezza Dolomites ski area—discreetly hidden beneath the Laurins Lounge at 2,337 metres in the Rosengarten massif—his deep respect for the majesty of the Dolomites becomes clear. From the very beginning, he knew that a conventional architectural approach would be out of place here. “No building, no matter how elegant, could compete with this scenery,” he says.
Today, alongside the mountain station of the König Laurin cable car, the valley and mountain stations of the Tiers panoramic gondola also bear Tscholl’s signature. He is considered one of Italy’s most renowned architects. The guiding principle behind all three projects is the same: “Here, nature is the main actor – not the architecture.”
“Wherever you look, the nature is untouched and pristine”
Maria Gufler, marketing manager for the Carezza Dolomites ski area, clearly remembers how the idea was born. Years earlier, their professional paths had crossed at the Timmelsjoch High Alpine Road, where Tscholl had transformed the pass route with six architectural sculptures into an entirely new visitor experience. That connection led to a meeting in the now-demolished two-seater chairlift to the Kölner Hütte, where Maria Gufler and Werner Tscholl sat together with cable car director Florian Eisath to discuss the future of the Carezza Dolomites.
Tscholl, who hails from South Tyrol’s Vinschgau valley, was deeply impressed by the panoramic beauty surrounding the Rosengarten. “Wherever you look, the nature is untouched and pristine,” he recalls. “Even in South Tyrol, that has become a rare sight.”
The idea of building an underground station for the new gondola from the Frommer Alm to the Kölner Hütte came quickly—especially since legend has it that this was the location of King Laurin’s colorful underground crystal palace.
And so today, anyone skiing or hiking in the Rosengarten and taking the state-of-the-art 1,800-meter cable car up to 2,337 metres is transported directly into Laurin’s realm—greeted by stone and shimmering colors.
What now appears so discreet and harmonious, following the opening of the König Laurin cable car in 2021, was in fact an enormous engineering challenge.
“It would’ve been much easier—and cheaper—to build a standard cable car station,” says Tscholl.
“And choosing the conventional approach would probably have provoked less skepticism,” he adds. But based on his extensive experience, Tscholl knows one thing: “Critics usually fall silent once they’ve grown used to the new and the extraordinary.
Nonetheless, Tscholl also won the architecture competition for the Tiers cable car project to the Frommer Alm, which opened in 2022.
His philosophy convinced the jury: minimal impact on nature, with stations that blend almost invisibly into their surroundings. Clear lines of concrete and glass, indirect lighting that evokes the feeling of a cave—yet never claustrophobic or disorienting.
“That everything follows a unified architectural concept is something that pleases me,” says Tscholl, who remains visibly moved every time he visits the Rosengarten.
Whenever he takes one of the gondolas, he snaps photos on his phone, tells stories of the massive amounts of rock moved during construction, and how truck drivers navigated treacherous paths on narrow ridges, how support pylons were placed on the steepest terrain, and how the cables were eventually tensioned and installed
Even though Tscholl was originally “only” responsible for designing the stations, he always followed the technical and construction progress of the cableways with keen interest.
And he was impressed by the pace: “Both cableway projects were completed within a year of breaking ground.”
Unexpected events during construction didn’t faze the seasoned architect:
“It’s part of our job not just to plan precisely, but also to adapt when needed,” he says.
At the mountain station below the Laurins Lounge, for example, he had expected to encounter Rosengarten bedrock—which would have visually reinforced the idea of King Laurin’s crystal palace.
Instead, the rear wall had to be reinforced with concrete.
But perhaps this very element helps the lighting concept to shine even more effectively against the clean backdrop.
“Architecture can’t hope to achieve more than that”
If the play of light sparks emotion and evokes associations with the legendary underground palace, then Tscholl is satisfied.
Because his goal is never to impose architecture, but rather to let people perceive it—subtly, quietly.
“Architecture,” he believes, “can’t hope to achieve more than that.”
His greatest compliment may well be when people don’t even consciously notice the stations he designed—and in doing so, appreciate how minimal the intervention in nature really was.
“Architecture isn’t about creating monuments to ourselves,” says Tscholl.
“We have to step back—especially in the face of such overwhelming natural beauty.”
