The Aletsch Glacier fills the wide valley as a huge sea of ice. So beautiful that the area has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is used as an advertising motif. The glacier and the incomparable natural spectacle are the reason why thousands of tourists travel to the Aletsch Arena every year. And right in the middle of it all is the new Moosfluh cable car. This elongated tubular structure, as we know it from many mountain railroads, is a perfect match. Why do tourism experts, whose capital is the beauty of their landscape, allow such disgraceful structures to go through, even praising them as "impressive due to their innovative design"?

Guests come to the Alps because of nature. Tourism experts sell the mountain idyll - and then the mountain railroads put up such unspeakable industrial buildings. The Aletsch Arena is by no means alone in this. These elongated mountain stations look the same everywhere, from the Dolomites to the Western Alps. So much for "innovative construction". Why don't mountain railroads focus on their task of selling vacation idylls? It starts with the valley stations, which sometimes look more like bomb-proof civil defense facilities than cosy vacation locations. It continues with the mountain restaurants, which often don't even stand up to comparison with an outdated company canteen. And then there are these mountain stations.

Why are the mountain railway operators not interested in this vacation idyll? Quite simply because they are transportation companies and not tourism operators. They want to transport as many people as possible, as quickly as possible and on schedule. They are not interested in the mountain idyll, but in cash flow. That's why this eyesore now stands on the Mossfluh. In the middle of the Unesco World Heritage Site.

There are also examples to the contrary, albeit few. The most striking example is the Chäserrugg in Toggenburg, where an investor had the mountain station of the cable car integrated into a monumental wooden structure. Or on the Fuorcla Grischa in St. Moritz, where the chairlift rides directly into the mountain and is not immediately recognizable as a mountain station from the outside. But that's about it.

The winter sports enthusiasts, for whom most of the mountain structures are still built today, have it good. The snow usually conceals these unspeakable industrial buildings. In summer, hikers and mountain bikers get to see the unvarnished ugliness. Yet we come to the mountains precisely because of this dream world. It's a shame that so few mountain railroads have seen through us.

The unspeakable tubular stations disfigure the mountains from the Dolomites to the Western Alps. The picture shows the new Moosfluh cable car in the Aletsch region.

Exclusive architecture made of wood: mountain stations become eye-catchers on the Chäserrugg in Toggenburg.

A chairlift mountain station can also look this integrated: Fuorcla Grischa in St. Moritz.