The late great architect Zaha Hadid designed some of the very best modern buildings. Her aquatic centre in Stratford’s Olympic Park, to take just one example, is the greatest of the London 2012 venues.
But it’s odd that her reptilian, ultra-modern and oh-so organic designs are found scattered across the seemingly conservative Austrian city of Innsbruck – one of the gateways to the Alps. Famous for its historic palaces and imperial buildings, Innsbruck nevertheless chose Hadid to design the new Bergisel Ski Jump in 2002. It’s a choice that doesn’t quite chime with a country famous for its love of the traditional and extreme right-wing politicians.
A few years after delivering the ski jump the Iraqi-born architect was tasked with doing something special with the Hungerburgbahn hybrid funicular railway and its stations. Her fascinating designs were inspired by the morphology of the Alps in winter. Sporting the sort of subtle green one can see in ices sheets, the sinuous forms reminded me more of giant snakes or lizards than mountains.
We found ourselves in Innsbruck on a grey summer day while holidaying in the popular resort of Kitzbuhel, an easy train ride away. The mist hung low over the mountains but the city funicular trip was a must for both of us, being admirers of modern architecture. At first the route took us through a tunnel, then over a bridge across the turbulent Inn River.
Finally it climbed up the side of the mountain to Hungerburg, at 860 metres above sea level.
From there we took the gondola up to the 1,905-metre Seegrube, where there are doubtless remarkable views on a clear day. Sadly, it was drab and cold on our visit and while we could’ve gone higher, it was rather pointless in those conditions…
There’s more about the stations at Zaha Hadid’s website.