A 260-metre skyscraper in Zermatt?

Situated at an altitude of 1,500 metres, the Lina Peak tower would have uninterrupted views of the Matterhorn. DR Heinz Julen

A hotelier-designer-artist from Zermatt dreams of building a 62-storey residential tower in the Valais resort, facing the Matterhorn, by 2034. Recently presented to the public, the project, dubbed Lina Peak, has divided opinion.

A giant tower project is causing a stir in Zermatt. Its promoter, Heinz JulenExternal link, presented it to the public in mid-November in front of a full house and a young audience that was rather open to novelty.

Julen, the 61-year-old architect and enfant terrible of the famous resort, can pride himself on being a daring creative. He has made a name for himself with projects of varying fortunes: a pressurised hotel at the summit of the Klein Matterhorn, reaching the symbolic 4,000 metre mark in altitude, failed to convince Alpine circles.

On the other hand, a hotel with beds and bathtub placed on a turntable, as well as a jacuzzi emerging from an opening roof for bathing above Zermatt, had more luck – before finally being converted to meet more traditional standards.

Thirty storeys for the seasonal workforce 

Zermatt-born artist, architect and designer Heinz Julen has a number of major hotel projects to his name. DR Heinz Julen

“I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and I’ve spent a lot of time on it if not a lot of money,” Julen said after the presentation of his new project, called Lina PeakExternal link.

The building site for the tower is at an altitude of around 1,500 metres in the lower part of the village on four plots of less valuable farmland – around 800 metres from the entrance to Zermatt. The tower would offer an uninterrupted view of the Matterhorn and its 4,478 metres of snow and rock.

It would include two categories of housing, built above a 40 x 40 metre base with 1,000 parking spaces, a 2,500-seat concert hall, restaurants, a day nursery, a public swimming pool, a sports centre, shops and a roof terrace accessible by high-speed lifts.

The second to 32nd floors would be reserved for the local resident population, including the hundreds of foreigners employed seasonally in the resort’s hotels, restaurants and electric taxi companies.

Given the price of land, their employers have great difficulty in finding them affordable seasonal accommodation. The tower would therefore provide them with relatively affordable accommodation, where the vacancy rate is close to 0%.

>> Read our article on Täsch, the municipality with the highest proportion of foreigners in Switzerland, due to its proximity to Zermatt: 

Top floors for wealthy foreign customers

The upper part of the tower, from the 33rd to the 62nd floor, would be given over to luxury flats with large picture windows. The sale price of these apartments would reflect the location, one of the most expensive in Switzerland, where prices have been rising steadily since the Covid pandemic.

The plan is to build the tower on four small plots of farmland in the lower part of the town of Zermatt. Heinz Julen DR

According to Julen, most of these luxury residences will be of interest to foreign clients. However, they will first have to register their papers in Zermatt, where the law prohibits the purchase of property by non-residents.

>> Our article on soaring property prices in the mountains: 

‘It’s not a foregone conclusion!’

What do the more than 5,800 permanent residents of Zermatt think? Opinions are divided between indignation and a certain enthusiasm.

But Heinz Julen’s task will not be easy. “First of all, we need to collect 600 signatures to request that the agricultural zone be downgraded to a building zone. Then there will have to be a popular vote,” he explains.

Julen envisages a distribution of shares of 7% to the municipality, 7% to the commune bourgeoise (a Valais speciality that groups together the resort’s ten historic families), 7% to the ski lifts and 7% to the local railway company.

The developer would acquire a 25% stake in Lina Peak. The remaining shares would go to shareholders who are convinced by the project. The project could take between five and ten years to complete and cost a good CHF500 million ($620 million).

It will also be necessary to think about road access to the site, which until now has been reserved for owners of residences in the resort.

With its thousands of inhabitants, the new “vertical village” is likely to further clog up the access road.

The developers are therefore planning a visitor centre to regulate the flow of visitors, as well as the construction of a new gondola to provide access to the ski slopes without passing through the resort.

Building such a tower would take five to ten years and cost around CHF500 million. Heinz Julen DR

Unprecedented

A project on this scale has never been seen in a Swiss resort. It raises legitimate fears. All too often, the construction of high-rise buildings has tarnished the area, for example the Europe Tower in Montreux or the Aminona Towers in Crans-Montana.

What’s more, the spectre of mass tourism looms large in Zermatt, where last year the number of visitors to the summit of the Klein Matterhorn, at an altitude of 3,882 metres, topped the 900,000 mark for the first time.

Is it still worth it for Switzerland Tourism to invest considerable sums to bring tourists from all over the world to the foot of the Matterhorn, when the resort is already on the verge of overcrowding?

Skyscraper or not, this question, like that of accommodation for tourists and locals alike, will continue to be the subject of heated debate in Zermatt in the years to come.

Other aborted skyscraper projects in the mountains

In the past, other projects for giant towers in mountain villages have been envisaged in Switzerland, but none has been realised: in Vals, in Graubünden, the idea of a 381-metre-high hotel tower caused controversy for several years.

The architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron also once planned a 105-metre-high tower on the heights of Davos.

Edited by Pauline Turuban and Samuel Jaberg. Translated from French by DeepL/ts