Since opening in Dec 2007, almost 6 million passengers have taken nearly 10 million journeys on the Hungerburg funicular railway between the centre of Innsbruck up the Nordkette mountain to Hungerburg. The Hungerburg funicular is part of Innsbruck’s Nordpark Cable Railway beginning at Congress underground station in the centre of the city. Trains stop at Lowenhaus station before crossing the bridge over the River Inn, then climb to Alpenzoo station and on to Hungerburg where passengers can continue their journey on the Seegrube and Hafelekar cable cars up to the summit at 2,300m. Shortlisted by RIBA for the 2008 Stirling Prize, ZHA designed each station to adapt to its own unique context, topography, altitude and passenger circulation, with glass roofs that echo natural ice formations, like glaciers or frozen mountain streams. Each station’s glass roof ‘floats’ above a concrete plinth, creating an artificial landscape that echoes the passenger circulation within. When completed in 2007, the stations were the world’s largest structures using double-curved glass in construction.

Photograph by Werner Hutmacher