Helmut Pizzinini created this sculpture from the precious and resistant marble of Laas. The 6.20 m high sculpture, which consists of 4 blocks of marble, is situated on the north-western slope of the Kronplatz and represents the mountains in the west. From here, your gaze stretches all the way to the Eisacktal valley behind which you will find the valleys called Etschtal and Vinschgau in which lies the valley of Laas.
The marble of Laas/Lasa stands for the mountains in the west. It is hard, resistant, weatherproof and watertight. Compared to other types of marble, the marble quarried in the valley of Laas is finer-grained – a characteristic that turns it particularly noble and valuable. You may not have been aware of it, but you have certainly come across the marble from Laas as it was used by numerous architects, especially towards the end of the 19th century, for the realisation of neoclassical buildings in the major European metropolises such as Vienna, Munich and Berlin. Moreover, this type of marble was also preferred by sculptors to create famous works such as the Statue of Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, the Pallas Athena Fountain in front of the Parliament Building in Vienna, the Queen Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace in London, the Heinrich Heine Memorial in New York as well as the 90,000 gravestones for the US soldiers who died in World War II and have been buried in 13 European military cemeteries.
