Catching Up With the Bernese Alps

The best place to see technology in all its naked splendour is in some of the more remote and inaccessible corners of the human terrain. Examined from this perspective, the glaciers, mountains and valleys of the Bernese Alps seem less spectacular than the cable car stations, communications towers and panoptic architecture that have been constructed to help us appreciate them. Nature is suddenly revealed as a technological theme park – its most breathtaking aspects are the views we have engineered for ourselves of these particular vistas.

Pictured above from Top to Bottom: cable car station with communications tower at Männlichen, 2227 metres above sea level; hydraulic freight lift in operation at the Lauterbrunnen cable car station, 796 metres above sea level; cable pylon between Brig and the Schilthorn, approximately 2600 metres above sea level; multi-screen projection at the Schilthorn tourist centre, showing an external panoramic view of the Schiltorn’s 360° revolving restaurant in winter, 2960 metres above sea level.