One block after another - or: the history of the Igloo Villages

Driven by the ambition to be the first on the mountain early in the morning in order to shoot photos of the sunrise and find white, untouched snow for snowboarding, I (Adrian Günter, initiator of the igloo village) built the first igloo. I spent the night in an expedition sleeping bag as my principal equipment in this igloo. My first guiding principle was:

“I want to be the first one on the mountain in the morning to enjoy the ambient and go downhill with my snow board.”

However, friends soon shared this little passion of mine and we built several igloos above the “Motta Naluns”. We enjoyed the base camp as a perfect sleeping place. Snow, a saw and our motivation were all we started with. People from the village and skiing tourists appreciated the igloos and asked for our permission to sleep in them. Inquiries increased and resulted in the first business idea for the next season during the winter season 1995/96: “I want to enable people to enjoy overnight stays in an igloo.”

The steadily growing demand required us to completely revolutionise igloo construction. The traditional building method was too sumptuous and slow. I soon developed and tested a building method based on balloons. This concept allowed for a faster construction of the igloo village and led to a dramatic increase of the number of accommodation guests.

We build a traditional igloo with a diameter of 9m (i.e. 1346 snow blocks and 3.2 tons of snow). The first sauna is commissioned, giving rise to our very first wellness area. The guest volume exceeds the 1000 mark with 1196 guests for the first time!

We take a big step and built three additional new igloo villages. Scuol and Zermatt are complemented by Engelberg, Grindelwald and the Zugspitze in Germany. Nearly 6000 guests booked an overnight stay with us.

We move from Grindelwald to Gstaad and offer the first romantic igloo suite while also developing our own online booking system.

We move from Scuol to Davos-Klosters in Bündnerland.

We return to the Engadin and open an igloo bar in St. Moritz at the Muottas Muragl. The igloo village in Gstaad moves from the Eggli to the higher Saanerlochsgrat. The igloo village is CO2 neutral since this winter season.