Snøhetta Turns Austrian Cable Station Roof into Alpine Mirror

Snøhetta has completed Lech Mountain Mirror, a reflective lookout installed on the roof of the Zugerbergbahn cable car station in the village of Lech, in Austria's Vorarlberg region.

The installation consists of a shallow pool of water crossed by a series of striped stepping stones, which lead up to a rock rising from the surface. The water mirrors the surrounding Alps and the clouds above, shifting with the weather and the time of day.

"The Lech Mountain Mirror transforms an infrastructure facility into a place for sensory experience," said Snøhetta partner Patrick Lüth. "It captures the magic of the mountains for visitors in an unusual way and offers opportunities to admire the mountain world from a different perspective."

The studio's Innsbruck office designed the viewpoint to play with visitors' perspectives while inviting a moment of pause. Access is free.

Weather is central to the design. "The weather becomes part of the experience, constantly altering one's perception of the surroundings," Snøhetta said. "On sunny, clear days, you see a precise reflection."

That precision is deliberately fragile. "When the wind blows, the reflection blurs, and the ripples on the water's surface create a new natural experience," the studio continued. "The reflections of mountains and sky, clouds and people merge into an image that changes with every breath of wind and every shift in light."

Around the lookout, the studio has created a green space with seating areas built from larch wood and stone boulders.

The project carries an economic agenda. Snøhetta said the installation is one of several art initiatives under development in the area to boost summer tourism, and it is hoped the free viewpoint will become a popular attraction that positions Lech as a year-round destination rather than a purely winter skiing resort. Projects by artists Antony Gormley and James Turrell are among the other planned initiatives.

The commission extends Snøhetta's long record of alpine interventions. Founded by Kjetil Thorsen and Craig Dykers in 1989, the Norwegian-American practice has previously worked nearby in the Nordkette mountain range, where its Innsbruck office created the Path of Perspectives — a series of architectural interventions along a mountain walking trail, completed in 2019.

Lech Mountain Mirror follows a wave of new alpine lookouts, including Herzog & de Meuron's converted antenna tower in the Swiss Alps and Xiang Architects' double-helix bird-watching structure in China. With Gormley and Turrell projects still to come, Lech is betting that art and architecture can keep visitors on the mountain after the snow melts.

The photography is by Christian Flatscher.