Engelberg’s First Winter With the Titlis Tower
Herzog & de Meuron have turned a 1980s antenna mast at 3,020 meters into the Alps’ newest lunch reservation.
Engelberg has always had a slightly different character from the grander Swiss resorts. It is a monastery village first and a ski town second, served by hourly trains from Lucerne, with a Benedictine abbey whose founding goes back to the early twelfth century. The abbey runs its own cheese dairy. Above it all stands Titlis, 3,238 meters high, with its glacier.
What's new
This winter is the first full ski season for the Titlis Tower, which opened on 29 May 2026. Herzog & de Meuron took the mast, a steel antenna tower about 56 meters tall built in the mid-1980s for telecommunications, and kept it visible. They added two horizontal glazed volumes and four vertical circulation towers, and reused an existing tunnel to the mountain station. The tower sits at 3,020 meters. Inside are Joseph's, a casual fine-dining restaurant with panoramic windows, an Alpine Lounge, and the Horizon Deck, a viewing platform 55 meters above the glacier.
The skiing
Engelberg's skiing is spread across three mountains: Titlis, Brunni and Fürenalp. The season generally runs from December to April, and the Titlis glacier runs can sometimes be skied from October to May. The final stretch up to Klein Titlis at 3,028 meters is the Rotair, billed as the world's first rotating cable car. Off-piste routes from the top lead toward the Laubersgrat ridge, and that terrain is the reason serious skiers come here.
Why now
The new tower gives a first-time visitor a reason to go up even on a non-skiing day. For everyone else, the reasons are the same as ever: a big mountain within easy reach of Lucerne, and a village that still keeps monastery hours.
