Oscillating Spaces looks to the Rhône Glacier—undergoing fast melting and transformation processes—as a case study to reflect on environmental challenges in a constantly oscillating site. Below, we publish excerpts adapted from the exhibition text to introduce the region, illustrated by stills from a 1989 film by Aufdi Aufdemauer of footage captured during a visit to the site of the Hotel Furkablick.

The Furka Pass sits high in the Swiss Alps, its vast, treeless landscape characterized by alpine meadows, rocky terrain, and glacial landforms. The high-altitude conditions shape this stark, ruggedly beautiful environment. As a result, the Furka Pass follows the rhythm of two distinct tempos: from the summer solstice to the autumnal equinox, it becomes accessible to locals and tourists, while it remains buried in snow for the remaining eight-month winter season. Long regarded as a threshold, the mountain pass—which provides access to the Rhône Glacier—bridges human knowledge and the forces of nature.

In the nineteenth century, when Alpine glaciers began to show signs of significantly retreating, the Rhône Glacier became the site of Switzerland’s first systematic scientific mapping. In what became a lifelong commitment, early cartographers recorded the glacier’s shifting topography, often braving extreme conditions to ensure precision. The resulting maps not only depicted the glacier’s topography at a specific time but also showed its movements and oscillations over periods of up to a quarter century. These maps became the foundation for modern alpine science and shaped Switzerland’s understanding of its geography.

Two centuries later, the Rhône Glacier remains a site of scientific inquiry, though research priorities have shifted from mapping to monitoring change. The glacier’s retreat, once barely perceptible, has accelerated visibly. Researchers continue to document ice loss, permafrost instability, and shifting rock formations, linking local changes to global climate patterns. The Rhône Glacier and the Furka Pass represent both a historical landmark of scientific discovery and a critical site in the ongoing dialogue between landscape, infrastructure, and environmental responsibility.

In addition to fostering scientific curiosity, the Furka Pass’s infrastructure has also allowed it to develop into a cultural hub. Once a Roman-era summer trade footpath, the Furka Pass became a destination for Romantic era artists (ca. 1800–1850) drawn to its dramatic landscapes. A 1869 tour by Queen Victoria marked the beginning of mass tourism in the region, with early visitors arriving by horse and carriage—a slow but picturesque method of travel. With the introduction of the PostBus in the early twentieth century, and eventually car travel, remote areas became more accessible and the number of visitors grew steadily.

The 1980s and ‘90s marked a particularly transformative period for the Pass and its cultural history, where art and architecture were influenced through the vision of Marc Hostettler, director of Galerie Éditions Média in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Recognizing the Pass’s historical significance and potential as a space for contemporary dialogue, Hostettler launched Furkart, an artist residency program, inviting prominent international artists to engage with the unique topography and cultural history of the Alps. Between 1983 and 1999, sixty-three artists came to the Furka Pass, creating works that were not simply expressions of aesthetics but rather site-specific interventions questioning the boundaries between nature, infrastructure, and artistic practice.

In 1986, Hostettler invited Rem Koolhaas, co-founder of OMA, to redesign the entrance, restaurant, and deck of the Hotel Furkablick. The project aimed for minimal intervention, creating a space that could accommodate Furkart’s artists in residence as well as daily visitors. As an introduction to the site, Hostettler arranged for a winter helicopter visit to the hotel, during a time when it was enveloped in deep snow. The visiting group included Rem Koolhaas, Marc Hostettler, Jeroen Thomas, Luc Reuse, Aufdi Aufdermauer, and the pilot. Aufdermauer shot footage of the day, which offers a rare view of the Hotel Furkablick covered in snow before OMA’s intervention, when the closed-off mountain route is dominated by snow and empty of humans. After landing at the snowy site in the morning, Hostettler and Koolhaas began developing the project and had lunch in the former Dépendance of the hotel, all documented by Aufermauer.

The Hotel Furkablick renovation and similar projects, where architectural and artistic experimentation converged, transformed the Furka Pass into a site of intellectual engagement whose legacy persists today. The region evolved from a scenic destination into a place where contemporary art and architecture interrogate the relationship between human intervention and the natural world, engaging with broader cultural and environmental concerns.