Manna Resort

Nineteen Rooms, Nineteen Countries, One Hillside

Montan sits on the wooded slope above the Adige valley, in the wine villages of the South Tyrolean Unterland, and Manna Resort occupies twelve thousand square metres of it that used to be a sawmill. Pichler Architects, from Bolzano, refused to put a block on the site. Instead the building steps down the hill in branching wings under planted roofs, so that from below it reads as terraced landscape rather than as a hotel. Inside are nineteen accommodations, and each one is designed around a different country: Japan, France, Sweden, Thailand, England, Russia, and on.

Why It Works

A themed room is usually a warning sign. Here it is the opposite, because the theme is applied with the same seriousness as the architecture, and because the shell it sits in is genuinely good: weathered copper, native larch, porphyry underfoot, elm inside, and green roofs that the surrounding vegetation grows into. The plan puts the restaurant where it screens the guest wings from noise and still keeps the valley view. Three of the junior suites and every one of the chalets have a sauna of their own. It is a resort designed by people who thought about where the sound would go.

Why This Location

The Unterland is the softest part of South Tyrol, where the Dolomites give way to vineyards and the valley opens south toward Trentino. Montan stands above that on the wooded edge, high enough for the air to change and close enough that the wine villages are a short drive down. The site looks out across the Adige and back into forest, which is the reason the architects gave every wing a view. Growers of the surrounding slopes, Franz Haas among them, supply the cellar. It is a base for slow days rather than for lift queues.

Fast Facts

• Price: €€€€

• Vibe: Design-led, secluded, theatrical without being loud

• Rooms: Nineteen in all, fifteen junior suites of 36 to 51 m2 each themed to a country, four chalets of 54 to 90 m2 with private sauna, bathtub and fireplace, including a 90 m2 chalet with its own spa for four

• Best For: Couples, design travellers, wine travellers who want a hillside rather than a village

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: That the roofs are planted, so the resort disappears into the slope when seen from the valley

• Dining: L Orangerie for Mediterranean cooking built on fish and shellfish from Sicilian markets, and Luisa Gourmet at the chef table for a tasting format

• Amenities: Manna SPA with a Thai character and partly Thai-born staff, outdoor bio-pool park, indoor pool, saunas, fitness, medical centre, hairdresser, step-free access

• Attractions: The Unterland wine villages, the Adige valley, the woods of the Montan slope, cellars of the surrounding growers

Copper, Larch and a Roof of Grass

The material list is short and consistent. Weathered copper on the outside, chosen because it can be recycled entire and because it darkens instead of ageing badly. Larch from the region for the cladding, porphyry from the region for the terraces, natural stone and elm inside. The roofs are planted, which does two things at once: it keeps the resort cool and it hides it. From the valley floor you are looking at a hillside with some copper in it, not at a building.

A Bio-Pool Park and a Spa With a Thai Accent

The water is arranged as a park rather than as a pool. Outdoors, a bio-pool cleaned by plants rather than chemistry; indoors, a conventional pool for the months when the outdoor one is too brave a proposition. The spa itself is run with a Thai character, partly by Thai-born therapists, which shows in the treatment list and in the pace. For guests who prefer not to share, three junior suites and all four chalets carry a private sauna.

L Orangerie, and the Chef Table Behind It

The main restaurant looks to the Mediterranean rather than to the Alps, and its buying tells you it means it: fish and shellfish come up from Sicilian markets. Beside it, Luisa Gourmet works as a chef table, a smaller and more conceptual format for guests who want dinner to be the evening rather than a course before it. The cellar draws on the growers of the slopes below.