Alpi’s Ecosistem Museum

Water is the protagonist of the Center dedicated to the research and valorization of Alpine aquatic ecosystems, located in a naturalistic area of great environmental and ecological value, about 1500 meters above sea level in the heart of the Gran Paradiso National Park. At the entrance a building houses the infopoint, the cafeteria and services, and a large shed is the place of welcome and introduction to the walk in the woods. The open space passing between the two volumes represents the door to the park. 

There are two ways of narration and “immersion” in the park, in which past and present merge and overlap.

One inside the Center which partly occupies the site of an ancient sawmill, powered by water until a few years ago, houses the caretaker’s accommodation, exhibition spaces, multimedia installations, laboratories for educational and informative activities, aquariums for fish and amphibians. In an underwater observation room, through a large 8×2 m glass window, the spectacular view of otters in the external water basin, set up with cyclopean boulders and logs, is surprising.

Architecture is a synthesis of good traditional, but also modern construction, respectful of the place and the desire to integrate with the landscape, not only through the use of local materials –stone and wood – but also thanks to the skilful composition of the volumes, and to the multiple relationship with the ground: supported and partially buried at the foot of the mountain. Landscape insertion is complemented by an extensive green roof. 

The other mode of visit is carried out through an open-air exhibition route, along dirt paths and elevated and articulated wooden walkways so as to preserve the existing trees, punctuated by a series of open spaces – observation points equipped with information tables, and original devices for observing animals, such as the extravagant binoculars carved in wooden panels and the watchtower. You explore the forest, the meadow areas, the wetlands along the waterways, an old mill, you get closer to the otter farming tanks. All the basins are fed by the always very clear spring waters. 

In the Centre, the Eurasian otter, a species located at the top of the food chain and ecosystem, is the subject of research that provides important indications on the biology of the species, to transmit its knowledge and the importance of conserving its habitat. Once present in this territory and now disappeared due to poaching and environmental transformations, therefore a symbol of the problems of protecting aquatic ecosystems.