Snøhetta Turns a Lift Station Roof Above Lech Into a Mirror for the Alps
On the roof of the Zugerbergbahn's mountain station above Lech am Arlberg, 2,100 meters (about 6,900 feet) up, Snøhetta has laid down a sheet of water that holds the peaks around it. Lech Mountain Mirror opened in August 2026, and it is free to anyone who makes it up the mountain.
A pool on a lift station
The basin covers 275 square meters (about 2,960 square feet) and holds 175 cubic meters of water. Stepping stones sit just below the surface and lead out to a natural rock in the middle, which serves as the viewing point. On a calm day the water is a sharp mirror of the mountains and sky. When the wind picks up, the reflection breaks into ripples.
Seats and loungers in larch wood and natural stone boulders line the basin, and part of the roof is planted. The water is cleaned biologically through a gravel filter. Swimming and wading are not allowed.
Friedrich's wanderer, rebuilt in water
The project was led by Patrick Lüth, partner and managing director of Snøhetta's studio in Innsbruck. Lüth traces the idea to a campaign image the lift company already used, a hiker on the Green Ring trail, which reminded the team of Caspar David Friedrich's 1818 painting Wanderer above the Sea of Fog: one figure at a lookout, gazing at the mountains. The Mirror sets out to rebuild that scene, with a dark sheet of water that reflects the peaks and a rock to stand on. He sees it as turning a piece of lift infrastructure into a place for the senses, shaped less by how it looks than by how it changes the way visitors behave: not action or adrenaline, but time spent with the surroundings.
Snøhetta has worked at an Austrian lift station before. Its Path of Perspectives, completed in 2018 for the Nordkette cable cars, set ten architectural elements along a 2.8-kilometer panorama trail from the Seegrube station above Innsbruck.
Lech's summer
The client is Lech Bergbahnen AG, which operates 14 lifts in Lech, as well as the Balmalp restaurant. Christian Röhrig, a member of its management board, presents the Mirror as part of a push into summer that supports Lech as a year-round destination. The company places it in a series with Horizon Field and Skyspace Lech, James Turrell's chamber at Tannegg in Oberlech, 1,780 meters up, which can be reached year-round on a trail above the Schlosskopfbahn.
Getting there
The Mirror is free and barrier-free. It sits beside the Balmalp restaurant at the top of the Zugerbergbahn, whose valley station is in Zug, reached by local bus line 2 or on foot. The Mirror can also be reached on foot from Lech or Zug, or by bike.
It is built for summer: the basin is filled from June to October and open during the Zugerbergbahn's summer operating hours, which this year run until October 4, 2026, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. After the season the basin and its pipes are drained, and the Mirror is closed in winter. Until October 4, Balmalp is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., except on Thursdays. Lech Card holders ride the Lech and Zürs lifts free.
Back down in Zug, the Rote Wand Chef's Table occupies the Schualhus, the village schoolhouse built in 1780. Head chef Julian Stieger holds two Michelin stars there.
