The co-director of Cooke Fawcett reports from a trip to Switzerland, including a hike through the Albrun Pass that takes in some extraordinary vernacular buildings
Somewhere between Brig and Ernen, our car was loaded onto a train and swallowed by a mountain. A few minutes later, we emerged on the other side. It felt like a very Swiss experience.
My fellow director at Cooke Fawcett, Francis Fawcett, had flown with me to Zurich the day before, spending 24 hours visiting practices we know in the city, before meeting up with Evert Klinkenberg of BETA office and Tilmann Schmidt of Zimmer Schmidt ArchitektInnen and driving south to the Valais.
The four of us worked together at Herzog & de Meuron before starting our own practices, and have been trying to meet once a year since – a few days walking, catching up and talking about the things that come with running small businesses.
Last year we were in the Peak District. This year Tilmann organised. We stayed in Ernen, in a building refurbished by his practice – a beautiful contemporary adaptation of a historic mountain house.
The centrepiece of the trip was the Albrun Pass, a full day’s hike from Ernen, crossing into Italy and descending to Domodossola. The route climbs past extraordinary vernacular buildings: granaries raised on wooden posts topped with flat stone discs, an ancient and beautiful means of keeping rodents out.
Cable suspension bridges cross the valley and highlight the value Switzerland places on well-designed infrastructure. Higher up, the architecture shifts; local Swiss timber giving way to drystone construction as the climate changes underfoot.
We stopped for sandwiches on the pass and enjoyed the view down into Italy, with the company of a large capricorn. On the Italian side, the vegetation changes noticeably, becoming lusher and more southern; a reminder of how the Alps affect weather, flora and fauna.
We descended into the Alpe Devero and stopped at Bar Pensione Fattorini Devero, which feels very Accidentally Wes Anderson, before heading to Domodossola for dinner in Italy and then catching the train back to Ernen.
On our final day, we drove up to the Rhonegletscher. Francis and I both lived and worked in Switzerland about 15 years ago, and we’d seen the glacier back then. It is much smaller now and the bare rock it has left behind is a legible record of how quickly things are changing.
At the foot of the glacier there is an ice cave – a historic tourist attraction, once carved into the glacier itself, but now exposed by retreat, kept from melting by a rather pathetic white sheet draped over it. Walking through is a strange experience. The ice is beautiful, deep blue-green and luminous, and the instinct is to admire it. But the sheet is a tragic admission, and it stays with you.
We’ll go to Holland next summer. It’s Evert’s turn to organise, and it’s probably going to be a bike trip.
Oliver Cooke is a director of Cooke Fawcett