Pass Museum Opened

26. Juni 2010

After its consecration as part of the celebration of the 50-year anniversary of the Timmelsjoch High Alpine Road, the interior of the Pass Museum has now been fully completed.

Situated at an elevation of 2,509 m, the new construction at the summit of the Timmelsjoch offers visitors quite an impressive sight. The museum, the foundations of which are on the North Tyrolean side but which protrudes 16 metres into South Tyrol, is housed in an "erratic boulder”. The rocks and boulders around the Timmelsjoch provided the inspiration for the museum’s design. "We didn’t want to taint the mountainsides with any additional colour.  
As a result of the careful integration of natural materials and colours, all the new elements take a back seat, as it were”, explains the renowned South Tyrolean architect Werner Tscholl with regard to the architectural concept. Tscholl was responsible, among other things, for breathing new life into the "Messner Mountain Museum Sigmundskron” near Bolzano.

Ice Cave
The "erratic’s” interior delivers what the Pass Museum’s exterior promises. Awaiting visitors is an "ice cave” made up of floor-to-ceiling glass formations. The historical pictures printed on the glass, (provided for the most part by Manfred Roilo), offer a striking insight into the arduous construction of the pass and the outstanding feat of achievement of the road’s pioneers. Short, easy-to-read trilingual texts take visitors on a journey through the road’s history – from the early vision, to its construction, to its opening in 1959 and to its link with South Tyrol in 1968. The historic model of the road has been recreated 1:1 and is presented in a stalagmite, a glass display case. Unimaginable in this day and age, the men completed the foundations of the 12 km-long high Alpine road by hand, stone for stone. Counter piece is a stalactite hanging from the ceiling which houses a further highlight. It exhibits the "fibula” (brooch) which was discovered near the summit and which provides evidence that people walked over the pass some 300 years before Christ. 

Discovery Route
The Pass Museum is part of the discovery route project - the "Timmelsjoch Experience”- which is currently being developed between the villages of Hochgurgl and Moos im Passeier. "Originally we wanted to build a small museum to commemorate last year’s 50-year anniversary of the high Alpine road. Then the local council from Moos, under the initiation of Dr. Maria Gufler, approached us with the idea of the "discovery route”, and so we integrated the Pass Museum into the overall concept,” explain Attila Scheiber and Manfred Tschopfer, directors of the Timmelsjoch Hochalpenstrasse AG. The Pass Museum and the Garnet above the village of Moos im Passeier are the first of five planned architectural sculptures. The other three – the "Telescope” on the South Tyrolean side near the Scheibkopf mountain, "Smugglers” beside the Timmelsbach bridge, and the "Walkway” at the toll booth in Hochgurgl – are due to be completed by 2011.