ABSTRACT
Alpine architecture built for tourists could be seen as spatial fictions, based on old myths and desires, which are still peeping through today. Several fictions were projected into the “wild nature,” which became first a symbol of liberty, before it was seen as an ideal counter world for all sort of visionary and utopian ideas. Whereas myths are based on generally shared values, fictions are deliberately fabricated account of something. The myth of the “free Alps,” the “virtuous peasant” and above all the “sublime mountains” stimulated the rise of tourism in the 19th century, which went hand in hand with the invention of the steam engine and rack railway, providing access to the highest peaks. The “alpine paradise” was all of a sudden easily accessible and the fiction became “reality.” Grand hotels, built next to the train stations, had to offer the tourists a wonderful world, at least as exciting as in literature and paintings, panoramas and diorama shows. Architecture and nature were staged according to this desire.
A major question arose: how can the sublime be reproduced artificially? This question had already been an important topic in the 18th century. Whereas the sublime was artificially generated in the cities at that time, hoteliers tried to stimulate this sensation in the real Alps a 100 years later, in order to attract tourists, seeking for strong experiences that allow them to escape from their daily routine. Since their imaginary of the Alps was “preformatted” by the sublime and the picturesque, staged by numerous media at that time, hoteliers had to do everything for offering an exciting “real World”, able to compete with the simulacra of panoramas, dioramas, Swiss villages and mountain attractions of amusement parks: nature was designed, waterfalls illuminated and stuffed bears dressed up in the entrance halls of grand hotels. The distinction between fiction and non-fiction was increasingly blurred; the “real” landscape in the Alps became nearly as artificial as the alpine simulacra in the cities.
