Plessi Museum at the Brennero Pass

The artist's name is Plessi, and Plessi is also the name of the service area that houses the museum near the Brennero Pass - the crucial Alpine pass between Italy and Austria. Fabrizio Plessi, born in 1940 in Reggio Emilia, is a contemporary installation, media, and video artist. In the mid-1970s, he gained international recognition with a new art form: the video sculpture.

In 1998, he opened his major solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Today, Fabrizio Plessi lives and works in Venice, Cologne, and Majorca. The heart of the museum is his impressive installation "The Soul of Nature", which he created for Expo 2000 in Hanover on behalf of the Euregio region. It consists of three individual compositions representing the Province of Bolzano, the Province of Trento, and the State of Tyrol. Water plays a central role: Screens simulate immersion in water and symbolically represent South Tyrol's rivers, Tyrol's glaciers, and Trentino's lakes. Complementing these are video installations, sculptures, graphic-pictorial works.

The Plessi Museum itself is an imposing building with large glass surfaces. In addition to the museum, it houses a service area and a South Tyrolean delicatessen. Even the service area's tables, chairs, workbenches, and shelves, crafted from Corten steel, are the artist's creations.

Opened in 2013 by Brennero Motorway AG, the 13,000 sqm museum offers an innovative combination of travel, rest, and culture. How to get there: You can reach it on the Brennero Motorway heading north near Brennero. Incidentally, just south of the village, you'll find the start of the Upper Valle Isarco Cycle Path, which takes you on two wheels to Vipiteno and Bressanone.