Crans Montana is home to some weird and wonderful architecture, including the spectacularly out-of-place Super Crans tower on Route de Vermala. The 19-story high apartment Tour Super-Crans was designed by Jean-Marie Ellenberger and built between 1964 and 1968. The design was said to increase sun exposure and maximise the views of the mountains on the south side. Ellenberger first came to Montana in 1945 to be treated for tuberculosis, eventually building his own residence La Syrin' in the village. Ellenberger also designed the Berner Klinik in Montana and the Mont Blanc hotel but is best known as the architect of Geneva Cointrin airport. Super Crans was not popular at the time of its inception and even managed to make the NY Times. In May 1970 their correspondent Robert Deardorff wrote:
A 19‐story concrete tower, with a five‐story rectangular building beside it, Super Crans stands on a seven‐and‐one‐ half‐acre plot at the end of a road leading up from Montana. In addition to its swimming pool and panorama, Super Crans has a putting green, a driving range and three tennis courts. The tower dominates the flower‐dotted meadow in front of it and is visible for miles. It stands out like a sore skyscraper from everything nearby, which is the reason so many people here are angry about it.
Sliding glass doors at Super Crans opened silently as I entered the hushed world of money—that special, unreal silence that sound‐proofing, thick wall-to-wall carpeting and the closed windows of air‐conditioning all make possible. The only noise was a permissible one: the splashing of a fountain at the far end of the antique‐furnished lobby.
To the left of the lobby, in the rectangular building, I found a deluxe restaurant and, through its glass wall, a sweeping view of a manicured flower garden, the unmanicured meadow and the fabulous chain of snow‐capped mountains on the other side of the valley.
Also in the rectangular building is a swimming pool with a glass wall that reveals the same superb scenery. The top of the building not only has a bar restaurant with an outdoor terrace, but also provides a bird's‐eye view of Montana‐Crans, the glistening Rhône far below in the valley, the dark forests and green meadows on the slopes and the jagged, uneven parade of glittering white peaks.
The apartments didn't sell well - not due to the controversy but the price. A four-bedroom apartment went for 200,000 Swiss Francs. Today the same apartment is worth around 1.5 million CHF - which accounting for inflation, is about the same price. The inside of the tower is not the cool, modern place it was back in the 1970s with much of it looking dated. The exterior still has an element of unusual style to it. It's nice to imagine a J.G Ballard novel being set here but also hard to believe the affluent Swiss residents would gradually descend into violent chaos.