Armin Grässl brings the Swiss landscape indoors

To stand before a mountain is to feel small. To walk through a forest or gaze across a still lake is to briefly grasp just how vast and layered the natural world truly is. Capturing that feeling – let alone its full magnitude – in any artwork is nearly impossible. But that hasn’t stopped Armin Grässl from trying.

How do you bring the scale of a mountain into a room? How do you convey the hush of snow-covered woods or the quiet exhale of a valley waking to mist? For Grässl, these aren’t rhetorical questions – they are the driving force behind his life’s work.

The renowned photographer began his career in fashion before turning his lens toward nature. For decades, he has sought to translate the stillness and power of the landscape into immersive visual experiences. His large-format photographs don’t merely depict – they surround, absorb, and transport. This isn’t postcard-perfect scenery. It’s raw, expansive, and quietly commanding.

In the Saanenland, Grässl is no stranger. He’s widely known for his panoramic compositions, rich with mood and atmosphere. Through his non-profit initiative, the Transforming Spaces Association, Grässl installs these works in hospitals and care facilities across Europe, bringing moments of beauty and calm to those who may no longer be able to step into the wild themselves. “If my work can offer a moment of stillness, a pause in someone’s day – that’s when the space is truly transformed,” he says.

His latest collaboration brings this vision to a new setting: high-end alpine living. In partnership with Gstaad Chalets by Smiling Houses, Grässl’s work now graces the interiors of exclusive private residences in the region. But this is more than decoration. A portion of every booking supports the Transforming Spaces mission – linking luxury with purpose.

“It’s a beautiful circle,” Grässl reflects. “Guests come here to rest and reconnect with nature. And through their stay, they help bring that same sense of peace to people in far less serene circumstances.” The chalets themselves are curated to echo the quiet grandeur of the Alps just outside, and Grässl’s images become part of that lived experience – more architecture than adornment.

For Grässl, beauty is not ornamental; it’s restorative. “A largeformat photograph invites you to get lost in it … to notice the subtle details, not just in passing but over time. Each time you walk by, you see something new. You observe – and you change.”

“I believe in nature’s healing power,” he says. “The softness of a lake, the feeling of being inside a forest, the silence that only snow can bring.” Grässl doesn’t just photograph trees – he captures the atmosphere between them.

Whether viewed in a hospital corridor or a chalet in Gstaad, his work invites pause. A shift in scale. A moment of presence.

As anyone who’s tried to photograph a mountain knows, capturing nature isn’t hard because of its detail, but because of its vastness. And somehow, Grässl comes close.

JEANETTE WICHMANN

Read more about the foundation on: https://trspa.org or follow on Instagram