Matteo Thun – simplicity, durability and lightness

Matteo Thun doesn’t do ego. He does feeling. He does place. He does emotion, intuition and the invisible energy of architecture that speaks softly but never fails to leave its mark. Born in Bolzano, the poetic cusp between Italian warmth and Alpine clarity, Thun has spent decades dissolving boundaries between architecture, design and object, building a body of work that’s striking in its scale, restraint and philosophy.

Forget signatures, forget stylistic trademarks, Thun is not interested in repeating himself. Instead, he anchors each project to the soul of its surroundings, what he calls Genius Loci: the spirit of a place. That’s the real driver of his work. It’s a kind of disappearing act, a masterstroke of making buildings feel like they were always supposed to be there, no matter how avant-garde or radical the concept. His mantra? Zero design stripped back, light, and rooted in longevity.

This mindset has taken shape in a remarkable range of works: the eco-icon Vigilius Mountain Resort in South Tyrol, a retreat that mimics a fallen tree and melts into its larch-forested slope; the Waldkliniken Eisenberg in Thuringia, a hospital imagined more like a hotel, built from wood, glass and kindness; and a minimalist villa on the shores of Lake Maggiore, where glass, stone and natural tactility converge with what Thun calls “botanic architecture”.

What ties them together is not aesthetics, but atmosphere. Nature is never an afterthought: it is the blueprint. Buildings here breathe. Interiors are tactile. Spaces feel like a sanctuary. And sustainability, the buzzword rinsed of meaning elsewhere, is deeply embedded. Matteo Thun was practising climate-conscious design long before it was fashionable, choosing local materials, reducing visual noise, and building to last.

Look at his collaborations with Campari, Bulgari, Venini. Each one a quiet revolution of form and function. The now-iconic V-shaped cocktail glass for Campari (1986) wasn’t just stylish; it poured better, mixed better, worked better. For Bulgari, Thun reimagined the classic wristwatch with the same pared-back elegance that defines his architecture. Even in product design, his approach is elemental: sensory, precise and always human.

Step inside a Thun-designed space and you’ll see it,or maybe you won’t. That’s part of the genius. The light feels just right. The flow of movement, the textures under your hand, the silence of well-placed stone or the curve of a sauna seat made from local pine – all of it tuned like a piece of music. He’s as much a choreographer as an architect, as much a therapist as a designer.

With studios in Milan and Munich, Matteo Thun & Partners remains as genre-defying as ever – a collective of global minds, united by Thun’s ethos: design should never shout. Instead, it should quietly shift the way we feel, connect, dwell. Recent projects continue this rhythm – a transformed Murano glass factory into a five-star sanctuary at The Langham Venice, a string of contemporary clinics that bring design and wellness into alignment, and private commissions that make light, air, wood and time their core materials.

To call Matteo Thun a designer would be to miss the point. He’s a modern humanist in architectural form,  a maverick minimalist with a mind for detail and a heart tuned to nature. His work doesn’t simply occupy space. It listens, adapts and quietly transforms. And in a world obsessed with spectacle, Thun remains defiantly timeless, building for beauty, function and the future.

Discover South Tyrol with our 25 fabulous hotels - From its perch in northern Italy, South Tyrol, or Alto Adige as it is also known, is a jewel of ancient cultures set in the mighty crown of the Alps. Nestled among the Dolomite mountains (a UNESCO World Heritage site) a marriage of languages and cultures comes together in the area’s healing spa towns, medieval hamlets, fairytale castles, wine trails and foodie destinations.

Known primarily for skiing, South Tyrol is also a year-round home to hiking, mountain biking and strolling through the botanical gardens at the base of its snow-capped mountains. At the end of the day, cap it all off with a signature hay bath or a dip in the healing thermal waters. This hidden Alpine part of Italy is well worth travelling to.

This is the South Tyrol where Austria snugs up to Italy.