Photo collection

The ALPS's extensive photo collection comprises around 500,000 photographs and is particularly valuable. It documents a wide array of subject matter, encompassing the very first photographic images of high mountain regions, visual ethnographic records of people who live in the mountains, glossy images from the tourist industry, and even amateur holiday snapshots. Spanning a period from the early days of photography around 1860 through to the present day, it also documents various photographic techniques.

Beck and Brügger
The estate of the photo alpinist Jules Beck and the photo collection of the Kunstanstalt Brügger Meiringen are particularly valuable. Until its closure in 1994, it was one of the biggest names in Swiss tourism advertising. Thanks to the support of Memoriav, part of the archive has been digitised on the "Memobase" portal. Browse through around 1,000 photographs from our photo collection online.

ALPS on memobase