Pyramidenkogel Tower

The Pyramidenkogel is an 851-metre wooded summit on the south side of the Wörthersee in Carinthia, and the tower on top of it is the reason people drive up. Opened on 20 June 2013 after only eight months of construction, it rises 100 metres including its antenna and is billed as the tallest wooden observation tower in the world. The design, by the Klagenfurt architects Markus Klaura and Dietmar Kaden with structural engineer Markus Lackner, won a competition in 2007: sixteen laminated timber posts climb in a gentle twist, held together by ten elliptical steel rings and eighty diagonal braces, so that from below the whole thing reads like a ladder of stacked ovals leaning into the sky.

The tower replaced a 54-metre concrete predecessor built in 1966–1968, which had welcomed its five-millionth visitor in 2008 and was demolished in October 2012. Before that, from 1950, a simple wooden platform and a memorial cross for the victims of both world wars stood on the summit. The new structure proved far more popular than planned: roughly 330,000 people came in its first year, more than twice the expected number.

What makes the climb worthwhile is the openness of the frame. The 441 steps wind up between the timber posts with the wind and the landscape always in view, and a glass-shafted lift serves those who would rather ride. The covered main platform sits about 64 metres above the ground, with two smaller decks stacked above it, the highest a little over 70 metres up. From there the long blue arm of the Wörthersee stretches out below, and the 360-degree panorama opens across the hills, forests and smaller lakes of the Carinthian lake country. The way down can be quicker than the way up: an enclosed tube slide about 120 metres long drops some 52 metres around the structure in around twenty seconds, one of the highest building slides in Europe (minimum rider height 130 cm).

Getting there

The tower stands in the municipality of Keutschach am See, above the southern shore of the Wörthersee. Klagenfurt, the Carinthian capital, is about 11 km to the north-east, and Klagenfurt Airport (KLU) is about 15 km away. The summit is reached by road; a car is the simplest way up.