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Building Boom in the Alps

Star Architects Hit the Slopes

By Marc Kowalsky

Forget about peaceful mountain cabins. Resorts across the Alps are inviting star architects to put them on the map. From flashy towers to sky-high pyramids, the face of Alpine tourism is changing.

The Little Matterhorn isn't a very hospitable place. The altitude of 3,883 meters (12,740 feet) makes breathing difficult, the wind is unrelenting and the temperatures can drop to as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 36 degrees Fahrenheit).

Nevertheless, more than half a million people climb into the summit cable car each year to take in the stunning view. Not only can one see the Little Matterhorn's big brother, but fully half of the 76 Alpine peaks rising above 4,000 meters (13,120 feet) are visible from the observation deck.

Daniel Luggen, though, would like to add another mountain to the 4,000 meter list: the Little Matterhorn itself. Luggen is marketing director for nearby Zermatt in Switzerland and he has proposed a project to build a 117 meter glass-and-steel pyramid that would perch on top of the mountain and elevate it into the big boys' league.

Outside would be two observation platforms. The interior would be pressurized to compensate for the thin air outside, and would house restaurants, a movie theater, conference rooms and a swimming pool. Luggen is soon planning to submit his permit application for the tourist attraction, projected to cost €30 million. "You always need pioneering projects," he says.

'Sensational Location; Sensational Project'

Pius App agrees. In Swiss ski resort Davos he has purchased the Schatzalp, an ailing ski resort with its own Art Nouveau hotel, which novelist Thomas Mann immortalized in his novel "The Magic Mountain." A new landmark is meant to conjure up some of the old enchantment. App plans to fork out €100 million for a 105-meter (344-foot) tower full of vacation apartments and a hotel. The tower has been designed by prominent architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, which designed Munich's striking new football stadium and Hamburg's soon-to-be-completed Elbe Philharmonic building. The construction plans are already approved and App is currently negotiating with investors. He touts his venture as a "sensational location, sensational project."

Despite the seeming bombast of the two projects, however, they aren't the only bits of Alpine augmentation going on. From Katschberg in Austria's Kärnten region to Savognin in the high Swiss Alps, more and more resort towns hope to attract new visitors with spectacular mountain structures.

"People are confident again," says Thomas Bieger, a professor of tourism at the University of St. Gallen. Bieger thinks that the recent development in the Alps may be symptomatic of a new phase in European tourism. First, it was the grand hotels of the Belle Epoque built at the turn of the 19th century. Then came the horrendous concrete structures of the 1960s. Bieger thinks the age of architectural icons may have arrived.

"Vacation packages are getting more and more similar every year. You need spectacular landmarks to set yourself apart," says Bieger. Dubai set the pace with its Burj al Arab hotel tower -- perhaps not a money-maker, but it has certainly become an icon.

Rollercoasters, Spas and Hexagons

The idea of bringing together mountains, concrete and pomposity is not new. For the past 10 years Austrian hotelier Günther Aloys has been shopping around his idea of building a 25-kilometer (16-mile) roller coaster ride from the mountain summits down to the town of Ischgl. And over in the Swiss town of Vals, visitor numbers have risen by 30 percent since architect Peter Zumthor redesigned the town's spa.

"There is intense competition," says Hans-Kaspar Scharzenbach, tourism director for the Swiss town of Arosa. To hold its own against nearby competitors St. Moritz, Davos, Klosters and Ischgl, his town hired renowned architect Mario Botta last year to build what German daily Die Welt called "the most spectacular mountain spa in Europe." Another mountain resort, the 2,653-meter-high (8,704 feet) Weisshorngipfel, is currently working toward building a hexagonal structure of metal and wood to house a restaurant with dramatic 360-degree views.

Construction of such projects, of course, isn't always without its problems. The cranes on Arosa's mountain, for example, have been standing idle since environmentalists managed to put a temporary stop to construction. The case will be decided in court this week. But Raimund Rodewald of Stiftung Landschaftsschutz, an environmental protection group, isn't optimistic. "Officials are cozying up to developers, especially when the project is the work of a star architect," he complains.

Just what the future may hold for the Alps can be seen in Andermatt, a village of 1,300 on St. Gotthard Mountain. Samih Sawiris, an Egyptian entrepreneur, plans to invest more than a billion euros there to transform the region into a vacation paradise complete with five to seven luxury hotels, 450 vacation homes and condominiums, a spa, an artificial lake and a golf course.

'The Future of Tourism'

The Swiss government is thrilled. It rushed through a permit to allow Sawiris -- who, as a foreigner, would normally have faced restrictions on the amount of land he could buy -- to snap up the more than 147 hectares (363 acres) required for his project. No fewer than 18 teams of architects are now working on the resort's design.

Meanwhile, Sonthofen, a Bavarian resort town, has also contacted Sawiris. Opponents call such projects "megalomania." Proponents tout them as "the future of tourism."

Whatever they are, these new projects are worlds away from the way the region currently markets itself to tourists. Formula 1 chief Bernie Ecclestone joked about the phenomenon not too long ago. "Switzerland is a great country," he said, "but not many people know that. The tourism office here operates rather like the secret service."

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan