Hotel Design: Mountains

Whitepod Resort, Les Cerniers, Switzerland. Photo credit: AlpineGuru.com.

Oli Corkhill of AlpineGuru.com wrote this guest post on mountain hotel design.

Mountain hotels don’t have to just be all furs and cowhide, although personally I’m a big fan of the two.

We’ve been seeking out the coolest hotels in snowy places for a while and have had some incredible design surprises. Here are three of them:

Les Cerniers isn’t a resort that many people are aware of but once we show them the Whitepod resort (above) they always want to visit. These geodesic ‘pods’ are probably most likened with ‘glamping’ in the mountains although it feels almost an insult to say that, as this place is so much more. To put it simply, the simplicity of these pods are what makes their design so intriguing. Their white color blends into the surrounding winter environment and their simplicity creates an entirely intimate setting.

Lagacio Mountain Residence, Italian Dolomites. Photo credit: AlpineGuru.com.

In the mountain town of San Cassiano, high in the rugged Italian Dolomites, the Lagacio Mountain Residence isn’t your stereotypical cliché of alpine design. Here sharp corners, large glass windows and a huge importance on incorporating the surrounding nature into the buildings inner atmosphere are the key design features. A little bit of cowhide has managed to find its way into some of the rooms but its utterly contemporary. Obviously worth me mentioning the service too which is geared towards the modern traveler with total flexibility from the rooms, which are in fact apartments. There’s an in-house bar with typical Tyrolean snacks and some efficacious aperitifs and a Michelin-starred restaurant nearby.

Heinz Julen’s Backstage Hotel, Zermatt, Switzerland. Photo credit: AlpineGuru.com.

Heinz Julen’s Backstage Hotel in Zermatt, Switzerland shows true Gesamtkunstwerk – with him being both architect and interior designer on the project. The hotel showcases the creative salvage of very ordinary materials, turning them into furnishings that play with the senses. Heinz is inspired by the American painter and printmaker Frank Stella whose paintings showcase both minimalism and post-painterly abstraction, elements of both can be seen through Heinz’s work. Heinz’s wife, Evelyne, runs the hotel so it is very much a family affair and the couples’ passions and souls come out not only in the aesthetics but in the service too.

See more in the Hotel Design series.