"Momentum" on the Lauchernalp This hotel in Blatten sets an example after the landslide
Just over six months after the Blatten disaster, the "Momentum" hotel opens its doors.
Image: KEYSTONE
The "Momentum" was built in a rush and is a temporary hotel for five years.
Image: KEYSTONE
Hoteliers Esther and Lukas Kalbermatten enthuse: "It's more than just a building project".
Image: KEYSTONE
A lot of wood and just as much passion went into the design of the hotel.
Image: KEYSTONE
The hotel on a postcard - and behind it in its existing form.
Image: KEYSTONE
Just over six months after the Blatten disaster, the "Momentum" hotel opens its doors.
Image: KEYSTONE
The "Momentum" was built in a rush and is a temporary hotel for five years.
Image: KEYSTONE
Hoteliers Esther and Lukas Kalbermatten enthuse: "It's more than just a building project".
Image: KEYSTONE
A lot of wood and just as much passion went into the design of the hotel.
Image: KEYSTONE
The hotel on a postcard - and behind it in its existing form.
Image: KEYSTONE
Where rubble and ice destroyed an entire village, a symbol of courage is now growing: Blatten celebrates the opening of the "Momentum" on the Lauchernalp - and gives a traumatized village community new perspectives.
19.12.2025, 21:31
dpa
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- A good six months after the landslide in Blatten, the new "Momentum" hotel opens its doors for Christmas.
- The hotel with 19 rooms and space for 64 guests was built in record time.
- "Momentum is a temporary hotel for five years - and a lasting symbol of new beginnings and solidarity in the Lötschental," says the website.
A good six months after the huge landslide in Blatten, there is a new symbol of hope: hotelier families from the Swiss mountain village have inaugurated a new hotel. The "Momentum" at an altitude of almost 2000 meters has 64 beds and plans to serve its first guests at Christmas. The wooden building is located at the top station of a ski lift.
"It's more than just a building project," said hotelier Lukas Kalbermatten during construction. "It's a kind of collective therapy. Something is being created where everything seemed lost." The hoteliers financed the construction with insurance money as well as contributions from the mountain railroad and the canton of Valais. Many of the 300 villagers would like to rebuild their homes near the old village. The symbolic ground-breaking ceremony took place in September.
Symbol of new beginnings
Disaster struck the village on May 28. For weeks, chunks of rock had come loose on the Kleiner Nesthorn mountain (3342 meters) above Blatten and fallen onto the Birch Glacier below. The glacier collapsed under the weight and millions of cubic meters of ice and debris thundered down into the valley.
The village had been evacuated beforehand. It was almost completely destroyed. One man died outside the village in a stable. Most of the buildings now lie under a huge cone of rubble. Others, which were initially spared, sank in the lake behind the cone of rubble that formed because the River Lonza was unable to drain away.
"Momentum is a temporary hotel for five years - and a lasting symbol of new beginnings and solidarity in the Lötschental," says the website. Of the eight hotels in the Lötschental, the three buildings in Blatten were destroyed by the landslide. Another one at the back of the valley has been cut off from the outside world ever since.
