Legna Bar

The Legna Bar was established in 2003 at the Flims valley station, situated directly within part of the historic chairlift station, which had been built in 1945 as the world’s first detachable chairlift. The clients sought a new use for the austere, purely technical building envelope that would transform the functional existing structure into a distinctive leisure and social venue, a task that, from the outset, required reconciling two contrasting worlds: the sober railway infrastructure and the desire for an exceptional venue for aperitifs.

The architectural intervention is deliberately kept simple and straightforward. Both inside and out, untreated fir and larch wood dominates, contrasting the technical structure with a warm, tangible materiality. A large opening in the existing façade featuring generous sliding glass doors, together with an adjoining terrace, connects the interior directly with the surrounding mountain landscape and makes the bar usable both indoors and outdoors.

Conceptually, the design draws on the Walser building tradition: wood as a building material, a lattice-work construction principle, and a floor plan that divides the space into smaller units, conceived as open living rooms that flow into one another. In this way, the austere railway station is transformed into a place that is explicitly intended to be seen as a ‘stage for leisure’.

Since then, the Legna Bar has established itself as a fixture of Flims’ après-ski scene. When the old chairlifts to Foppa and Naraus were replaced in March 2023 by the new FlemXpress gondola lift after almost 80 years of operation, the bar at the valley station remained and is still today, with its sun terrace, DJ programme, and year-round opening, a popular meeting place right at the edge of the slopes.