Zauberberg
Jens Meurer, 2017Can you imagine a luxury hotel which refuses a five star rating because this would require TVs, minibars and telephones in the rooms; exactly what its guests are paying for NOT to have?
High above Southern Tyrol's Adige river, on the sunny side of the valley, lies Zirmerhof, a veritable Magic Mountain in the style Thomas Mann, but reborn in the 21st century. A magic, legendary spot, for more than 125 years the meeting place of poets, Nobel laureates, WWII resistance fighters, individualists.
But paradise only at first sight: for each of these 125 years it has been a place where tradition is pitted against innovation, the past against modernity. This is a full-out struggle for the survival of a unique location, which must not betray its heritage and values, but cannot endure without constantly re-inventing itself.