It wouldn’t be hard to miss the Origen Festival’s theater standing upright in the Swiss Alps based on the fact that there’s nothing but mountains around it. But to see it you’d have to make the treck 2,500 feet above sea level to where it’s located.
The red building weighs a massive 410 tons since it needed to be built strong enough to withstand the harsh winds and potential avalanches at that elevation. It was built for a festival but will remain in the area until 2020 as a performance piece.
Festival director Giovanni Netzer explained the concept.
“We thought it’s perhaps more interesting if you don’t have a big opera house to use nature as a big theme. The idea was to combine the atmosphere in the landscape with the performance you do onstage.”
