2021
The Gotthard hospice is the oldest kind of pass house: excavations of a chapel in its cellar go back to Carolingian times, and today’s ensemble has grown over centuries. The upgrade from mule track to the cobbled Tremola tied the house closely to the road – until the railway tunnel of 1882 took away the route’s importance.
Made for my master’s thesis “vom Passhaus” (On the Pass House) at Graz University of Technology (Institute of Spatial Design, supervised by Prof. Alexander Lehnerer, 2026). A pass house stands where the road reaches its highest point – as a hospice, post and customs station, inn, road keeper’s house or military post, often isolated and snowed in for months. The thesis treats it as a building type of its own and traces its history from the Roman Alpine roads and the medieval hospices to the tunnels that took away the passes’ importance from 1882 onwards, and to the tourism of the high Alpine roads.
A massive stone base, small windows, the entrance on the upper floor, an orientation set by the wind: much about the pass house can be explained by its location, climate and the institution behind it – but not the impression it leaves when it suddenly appears after the last bend. So I visited the houses myself, photographed and drew them. From this way of looking came hand drawings and designs for new pass houses.