We begin with a deliberately ambitious question. What would it take for every person on Earth to live at least as well as someone in Switzerland does today-by 2100? Not culturally Swiss, but economically empowered with high incomes, long lives, strong education, and social cohesion. Achieving this would require global GDP to be about 8.5 times higher than it is today. That figure alone is enough to trigger skepticism. Will we have enough energy, materials, food, and innovation?
Business Insider tracked at least 157 private jets that arrived near the Alpine town, using data from ADS-B Exchange and JetSpy, which track FAA-registered aircraft. More than half of the flights tracked landed at Zurich International Airport. Another 45 came into Friedrichshafen, a German city on the shore of Lake Constance, just over the Swiss border. The rest were spread across other smaller airports in Switzerland.
I've checked in at a few of the group's lauded hotels over my decade-plus time living in France, but the Alpine locale has long been on my bucket list. Courchevel, the ritzy ski resort in France's Les 3 Vallées-the world's largest interconnected ski area-lives up to its reputation of "Saint-Tropez in the snow." Here, you'll recognize some of the same restaurants (Kinugawa, Bagatelle) and hotels that line the cobblestone streets of the famous French Riviera town.
Lacum Respira is a lakeside pavilion by .ket bureau on the shore of Lake St. Moritz in Switzerland. Set at the water's edge, the timber structure addresses a landscape shaped by seasonal rituals and a long tradition of outdoor life, where the lake acts as both foreground and horizon. The calm setting is defined by open air and backdropped by dramatic mountains. Any architectural move here carries weight.
Standing among the Alps, it's easy to believe that they will last forever. They seem too big to fail, too old to change. This illusion of permanence has long entranced travelers who have visited to experience the intoxicating feeling of being daunted and dwarfed by a landscape's authority. But even mountains move: This past May an avalanche of ice and rock tore through the Lötschental Valley, erasing the village of Blatten in less than a minute.
Trump on Wednesday is set to address the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alps, where his ambitions to wrest control of Greenland from NATO ally Denmark could tear relations with European allies and overshadow his original plan to use his appearance at the gathering of global elites to address affordability issues back home. Trump comes to the international forum at Davos on the heels of threatening tariffs on Denmark and seven other allies unless they negotiate
The alpine luxury aesthetic has been whitewashed with bleached timbers, disciplined schemes in varying shades of snow, and bouclé furniture that politely receded into the background - all designed to quiet the senses after a day on the slopes. It was a look that mirrored the landscape outside: serene and elemental. But something more decorative is carving fresh tracks. A new generation of designers is embracing pattern, color and ornament at altitude, with chintz leading the mountain-maximalist charge refreshingly off-piste.
Prospect and refuge: These two themes have long guided the work of Tom Kundig. Siting houses in some of America's most breathtaking but also rugged terrains, the AD100 architect takes care to create a deep sense of shelter-nestling buildings into hillsides, even blasting into rock-and engineer awe through sweeping vistas and intimate connections to nature. "Architecture is not the center of the world," he has often said. "It's the landscape that's the center of the world for me."
Hours away from my home, bins of tiny metal balls gleamed in the fluorescent light. These small orbs had brought me from New York City to Munsingen, Switzerland, a three-and-a-half-square-mile city with a population of 13,000 just outside of Bern. I'd made the pilgrimage to visit the factory of the midcentury modular furniture line USM Haller, where these spheres are the heart of the operation.
On the approach to Arosa in the Graubunden Alps, the road is lined with mountain chapels, their stark spires soaring heavenwards; a portent, perhaps, of the ominous route ahead. The sheer-sided valley is skirted with rugged farmhouses and the road twists, over ravines and round hairpin curves, to a holiday destination that feels like a well-kept secret. On the village's frozen lake, young families ice skate, hand in hand.
On a recent two-week trip to Japan with my fiancé - six cities, six hotels - every stay was gorgeous and perfectly appointed. We wanted for nothing. Except, in most cases, a proper bathroom door. Instead, we spent the better part of two weeks making accidental eye contact through frosted glass and translucent panels while one of us was otherwise occupied. A design choice, apparently. A test of intimacy, definitely.
My husband and I spotted Castel Badia from a distance as we drove through Val Pusteria, the scenic Alpine valley that connects Italy and Austria. Once we got closer, we ditched the car and hopped into a sleek electric golf cart that whisked us to the entrance of the 11th-century castle-turned-five-star hotel. Upon entering, I was immediately drawn to the lingering scent of pine, ancient wood, and the mountains.
Seclusion is a given. After a 10-minute drive through a gated forest of lodgepole pines, a valet struck a triangle iron bell to welcome me "home." I was escorted to a leather club chair beside a dark steel fireplace and offered a warm towel and a huckleberry-flavored mocktail. An expansive wall of glass framed Lone Mountain, the iconic centerpiece of Big Sky.
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