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Architects and designers touch our lives through everyday objects, buildings and monuments. Given the season, we asked ourselves how their interventions have influenced mountain locations and ski destinations over the years. Among the most daring challenges of these designers is the construction of chalets and ski facilities generally located on territories that are not very hospitable and beaten by extreme weather factors.
The increasingly priority need to seamlessly integrate architectural structures and the energy reserves necessary for their operation with the surrounding environment requires a high level of creativity and technical expertise, and no small amount of passion. We see through a series of Alpine and international projects how these two components have evolved over the course of the twentieth century.
Many names left their signature on mountain architecture; let's start with women designers. Passionate about hiking and mountain sports, Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999) declared that among her most prized possessions were her skis. Among the best-known projects developed by the French designer is Les Arcs (pictured), a series of vacation villages located at different heights not far from the iitadine of Méribel in France. More than 50 years after its construction, this structure is still regarded as an example of architectural integration in a mountainous area. Perriand's idea was to expose as many people as possible to ski slopes and trails. She designed the Les Arc resort, which began between 1968 and 1969 and ended 20 years later, to include many small apartments decorated in a simple and functional way with materials from the mountains themselves, such as pine and leather chairs like the eponymous Les Arcs chair, and closets integrated into the walls.
In more recent times, Zaha Hadid (1950-2016), an Iraqi-British architect known for her unique, fluid and organic designs, completed the sixth and final chapter in a series of museums dedicated to mountain climbing by famed climber Reinhold Messner. Completed in 2015, the Messner Mountain Museum Corones is perched with its futuristic silhouette between the sky and the rocks atop Plan de Corones in the Italian province of Bruneck in South Tyrol. Zaha Hadid Architects designed a very special visitor experience, in which visitors descend into the dark interior of the mountain and then exit onto a 20-foot terrace suspended over the valley, offering spectacular views of the Dolomites. Descending inside a concrete structure shaped around large mirrored windows, visitors can see the development of mountaineering over the past 250 years in terms of equipment, as well as stories and events related to the mountains of South Tyrol.
Also on the Alpine mountains, one can see various iconic buildings and facilities bearing the signature of Carlo Mollino (1905-1973), an Italian architect, designer, and photographer active in the mid-20th century. Best known for his unique and eclectic designs that fused elements of Art Deco, Futurism and the avant-garde, Mollino was, among other things, a great fan of mountain sports. From the 1948 Casa del Sole in Cervinia to the Rifugio Mollino in the Susa Valley in Piedmont and the stunning Casa Capriata of 1947, his mountain projects are now considered masterpieces of modernism. Like Perriand, Mollino also designed furnishings for these projects aimed at launching democratic and sustainable ski tourism. Many of these pieces made from local woods such as pine and chestnut reach triple-digit figures in design auctions today.
Finally, it is worth mentioning the mountain projects of Norman Foster, born in 1935, such as the Chesa Futura in St Moritz, an early 2000s building that reproduces on three floors the shape of a long soap bubble covered with wooden tiles that enhance its organic character. Large terraces create sheltered outdoor environments with breathtaking views of the snow-capped Alps, while at the same time introducing a rich quality of natural light. It is an innovative project that in its originality bares a connection to earlier mountain architectural tradition.
Many other mountain projects could be named, not least Foster's renovation again of the Kulm Eispavillon in St Moritz, a 1905 project where the 1928 and 1948 Winter Olympics were held, but one article would not be enough to list them all.
What is clear from this brief analysis is that the architects, designers and planners of successful mountain structures have poured more than their own technical knowledge into these architectures: indeed, in each of the projects mentioned, one glimpses the passion of these professionals for the mountains, for sports, for skiing and for the extraordinary impervious territories where they rise.
