Celerina was once an interesting village next to the world famous ski resort of St. Moritz. The tourism has transformed the typical rural villages of the 19th century. The challenge was now how to react to the dramatic change of scale required by the huge building program for a new hotel. The site was a large parking lot that served the gondola going up the mountains of the Corviglia ski area. We had to relocate the cars, previously parked at ground level, building two underground parking floors. This important investment allowed for a new use of the ground space, setting a relationship between the hotel public spaces of the ground floor and the sloped mountains.

We didn’t aim to propose a nostalgic style, a large scale mountain chalet: however we decided to cut the volume in four different elements to reduce its scale and we proposed materials that relate to the architectural tradition of Engadina, such as stone, wood and pinched roof.

Unfortunately our hotel developer and the Comune of Celerina were not able to reach a financial agreement on the project and, now, 15 years later, hundreds of cars still occupies the huge asphalt exposed parking lot…