Zugspitze mountain station

In July 2018, the conversion of the mountain station for the new Bavarian Zugspitze cable car line was completed with the opening of the Panorama 2962 summit restaurant. Designed by Hasenauer Architects, the new extension of the building on Germany's highest mountain offers spectacular panoramic views thanks to expansive glazing. Fire-resistant glass panes from Vetrotech Saint-Gobain ensure safety at the mountain station. The production, delivery and installation of the glass demanded tremendous efforts from everyone involved.

Anything but ordinary: The new Bavarian Zugspitze cable car line, which was finally completed in July 2018 with the opening of the restaurant at the mountain station, is a project marked by extremes in terms of both structure and general requirements. The world's longest freely suspended cable car line has only one supporting column, which with a height of 127 meters is the world's tallest steel column today. Each of the two high-capacity cabins, which have glass floors, offer space for up to 120 passengers and can transport as many as 580 people per hour to the summit. Furthermore, the conversion and extension of the mountain station were also carried out at Germany's highest construction site at just under 3,000 meters above sea level. The new cable car line replaces the previous cableway. The old Eibseebahn was no longer able to cope with the huge rush to the Zugspitze – which attracts approximately half a million visitors a year.

The altitude, prevailing weather conditions at the Zugspitze summit, geological factors and logistics posed enormous challenges for the project. This also applied to the transport of Vetrotech Saint-Gobain‘s fire-resistant glass panes, which, like all other materials, had to be transported from an interim storage facility at 1,200 meters to the construction site using a separate material cableway, and installed at the mountain station by the Stahlbau Pichler company from Bolzano (I). Inside the station, the 176-square-meter CONTRAFLAM glass panes supplied by Vetrotech Saint-Gobain for various different superstructures provide above all for safety at points of transition between individual areas of use as doors, windows or fire-protection walls.