Frutt Family Lodge designed by Philip Loskant Architekt, The compound is situated just beside a lake, high up in the Swiss mountains at an altitude of about 1900 meters above the sea. The small village of Melchsee-Frutt is the top station of a skiing area, in winter only accessible by a small cable car. The crystalline building cubes mark the edge between village and lake. Hotel and apartments face the rough landscape scenery and seem to become a part of it: four monumental rocks floating on a crystalline basement, just like mountains upon a mirroring lake. Recalling Bruno Taut?s expressionistic ?Alpine Architektur? from the 1920s, the buildings are an optimistic statement of how architecture and nature can become a ?fantastic? whole.
Photography: Ulrich Stockhaus The guest approaches the building from the north, entering a welcoming courtyard. From this perspective, the four building volumes and their basement rim become sort of a crown, embracing the guest. From here on, the building does, what architecture is doing since millennia: protecting man against a wild and unexpectable nature ?and from that safe harbor, opening up ever new perspectives on that wild ?outside?.

In this sense, the glassy basement?s entry area, restaurant, bar, and lounge area ?lodge? at its best: offering all the commodities of a wooden, chalet-like the interior, they open up fantastic views on lake and mountains at the same time. Wherever interior and exterior meets, natural light is flooding the...