The Zelfenschanze, built in 1937, was once Austria's biggest ski-jumping hill. Since summer 2014there has been a "new edition". The new complex is called Montafon Nordic and, while it has as little to do with the old, natural hill as ski-jumping in the early days with today's technically sophisticated sport, it is still a worthy successor to the legend. The project involved the erection of four jumping hills that can be used throughout the year - two smaller ones measuring 22 and 40 metres in length, a medium-sized one 66 metres long, and a standard 108-metre jump. Architect Markus Waeger explains that the International Ski Federation lays down very clearly defined rules about how a ski jumping hill should look. He adds that these do, however, leave some room for manoeuvre, so there were opportunities for design in-put not just in the ancillary buildings but also in terms of integrating the ski jump itself in the slope. So, for example, in the big jumping hill Mitiska Waeger decided to use a steep in-run so that the start building did not have to extend too far into the somewhat unstable slope. The general aim was to embed the complex as well as possible in the topography. This meant that particularly spectacular statements were not possible, but there was still an opportunity to express the dynamics of ski jumping as a sport.
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