The wild simplicity of mountains makes sense of being an architect for the founder of Klas Hyllén Architecture, who shares his exhilaration from the Haute-Savoie
I am writing this from a small cafe off the high street in Chamonix, sipping a coffee, with my head craning up to see the towering pillars that define the skyline high above – a small section of which we climbed this morning. With tired legs we enjoy our coffee contentedly.
It seems impossible to climb, when you look at it from the safety of the valley – but up there is an endless playground of skiing, climbing or mountaineering, if you know how to pick your way around it.
It also seems impossible that in just seven hours we have made the return trip from the valley up to 3800m, climbed up the Cosmique Arete, and then back down – all thanks to a feat of gondola engineering that still impresses me more than most other construction projects.
I love this place and I have got to know it well over the past 20 years. I love the little rituals involved, the planning, waking early, the morning coffee before you set off, the noise of metal on hard snow from fellow climbers around you. And then the tiredness after. I love the way that being in these environments completely sharpens your mind and puts you in the present.
Climbing mountains and being an architect have always gone hand in hand for me, ever since my university days in Edinburgh. It’s my work-to-live moment and it somehow seems that I need the simplicity of being in the mountain wilderness to be able to make sense of the complexity of being an architect.
There is something meditative about being in these spaces that gives me perspective and energy, and work always seems effortless every time I return home from these experiences in the mountains.
Klas Hyllén is founder of Klas Hyllén Architecture
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