Celebrated climber Reinhold Messner has opened his sixth and final Messner Mountain Museum, the Zaha Hadid–designed MMM Corones, located at the summit of Italy’s Mount Kronplatz. Each museum focuses on different aspects of climbing and the mountain environment, and MMM Corones explores the discipline of mountaineering.

Messner envisioned the museum emerging from the mountain in three places: two windows looking out toward the peaks of Peitlerkofel and Heiligkreuzkofel, and a balcony facing Ortler and South Tyrol.

To reduce its footprint, the reinforced-concrete structure has several levels, which are connected by a series of staircases. The exterior panels are made from a lighter shade of glass-reinforced fiber concrete that reflects the limestone peaks of the Dolomites, while the darker interior panels are meant to resemble the color of anthracite found within the mountain. To carve out space for the museum, 140,000 cubic feet of earth and rock was excavated from the mountain and then placed above and around the structure.

“The idea is that visitors can descend within the mountain to explore its caverns and grottos before emerging through the mountain wall on the other side, out onto the terrace overhanging the valley far below with spectacular, panoramic views,” Hadid said in a statement.