The western Alps hosted the first prototypes of architecture dedicated to recreational activities at high altitudes. In 1795, at the foot of Mont Blanc, at Montenvers, Marc-Théodore Bourrithad erected a building called the Temple of Nature on the ruins of an earlier shelter built by Charles Blair in 1779. In Italy, the first official hut of the Italian Alpine Club was the Alpetto in Monviso, which opened in 1866. Initially Spartan shelters, they became ever more comfortable lodgings and these alpine huts have witnessed the history of mountain climbing.