A first hotel was built on the Gornergrat in 1896, two years before the completion of the Gornergrat rack railway. As the tourist traffic increased, the current larger hotel was built between 1897 and 1907. Given the clean air and good light conditions of the area, a dome was built on each of the two towers of the hotel in 1996. The KOSMA telescope was installed in the southern tower while the Gornergrat Infrared Telescope was installed in the northern tower.