Scale Mount Snowdon for a high peak in Welsh architecture

The journey to the top of Mount Snowdon begins five miles below in Llanberis station, where Britain's only rack-and-pinion mountain railway train waits to be boarded Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty

The Snowdon mountain railway has been running steam-powered trains to the summit since 1896, when there were two hotels operating on the summit (one blew down, the other vanished in the 1930s) Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty

At 3,560ft (1,085 metres), Hafod Eryri is the highest visitors' centre and cafe in the UK. Translated from Welsh, it roughly means 'summer residence in Snowdonia' – an appropriate moniker for a place that shuts down entirely when the warm season ends Photograph: Marc Dewhurst/PA Wire

The new visitor centre cost more than £8m and was designed by London-based architects Ray Hole, specialists in creating buildings in unusual and difficult locations. On arrival, visitors are greeted by lines of poetry carved into the exterior of the building, by Welsh poet Gwyn Thomas Photograph: Ray Hole architects/PR

The locomotive comes to a stop in the Snowdon Mountain railway terminus at Hafod Eryri, after roughly an hour's climb up the mountainside Photograph: Aneurin Phillips/Snowdonia National Park/PR

Construction of Hafod Eryri began in 2007, with a team of at least 80 people on the site each day. The stone and slate building had to be erected as quickly as possible, to limit the workers's exposure to the savage elements Photograph: Ray Hole architects/PR

Inside, a gallery of huge, west-facing windows is inclined to offset the sun's glare, and enable visitors (weather-permitting) to take in the stunning views Photograph: Ray Hole architects/PR

Staff at the centre spend much of the summer living on the summit, sleeping in purpose-built quarters Photograph: APCE/SNPA

Hafod Eryri replaced an earlier visitor centre on the summit of Snowdon (pictured here), a shabby concrete hut designed by Clough Williams-Ellis. It was described by Prince Charles as the 'highest slum in the world' and was eventually demolished in 2006 Photograph: Snowdonia National Park/PR

When the summer season ends, Hafod Eryri will close down, its windows shuttered and the water drained away, until the following year Photograph: Aneurin Phillips