Every design for Bolzano - Bozen

Inside the Museo Mercantile - Merkantilmuseum lies the story of what Bolzano was for centuries: a market town on the roads that linked the Adriatic with Bavaria and the Grisons, at the confluence of the Talvera and the Isarco. First recorded as Bauzanum, it spent a long time within the Austrian political and cultural world before it was annexed by Italy after the First World War, and the twentieth century brought heavy industry and many new Italian-speaking residents.

That layered past is something people here feel every day. The city is officially bilingual, conversations switch between Italian and German, with Ladin on the edges, and the city is often described as a bridge between northern and southern Europe. The Duomo di Bolzano - Bozner Dom and the Chiesa dei Domenicani - Dominikanerkirche keep their double names, and so does Castel Roncolo - Schloss Runkelstein.

For anyone who grew up in Bolzano, the map is the triangle of the old town between the two rivers and Monte Tondo, the cable cars climbing out of the valley, and the Catinaccio waiting on the horizon.