Laurent Chappis (8 May 1915 – 28 December 2013) was a French architect and town planner. He was born in

Aix-les-Bains Aix-les-Bains (, ; frp, Èx-los-Bens; la, Aquae Gratianae), locally simply Aix, is a commune in the southeastern French department of Savoie.

, France in May 1915. He created the French

ski resort A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter sports. In Europe, most ski resorts are towns or villages in or adjacent to a ski area – a mountainous area with pistes (ski trails) and a ski lift system. In North ...

Courchevel Courchevel () is a French Alps ski resort. It is a part of Les Trois Vallées, the largest linked ski areas in the world. Courchevel also refers to the towns of Courchevel 1300 (Le Praz), Courchevel 1550, Courchevel 1650 (Moriond), and Courc ...

located in the Trois Vallées and in doing so practically wrote the rule book on how to design a ski resort. Chappis was a keen ski tourer exploring the mountains around

Grenoble lat, Gratianopolis , commune status = Prefecture and commune , image = Panorama grenoble.png , image size = , caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...

in the 1930s before joining the army and serving in the early stages of World War II. A decorated war hero he was captured in an attack on a German position in the final days before the French surrender and served five years in a PoW camp in Austria. He completed his doctorate in captivity, the subject was the development of a ski resort in the Trois Vallées area. His ideas were often controversial, especially with developers more concerned with profits than aesthetics. This led him to be nicknamed the ''Anarchitecte''. In the 1960s he was appointed as a

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

expert on mountain development. A nomination that came not from his native France but from Italy. Chappis is also credited along with the architect Denis Pradelle with creating a modern, functional style of mountain architecture which rejected both traditional Savoie styles and the Tyrolean chalet style of architecture.

Works

Laurent Chappis worked on studies in many countries including France, Italy, Argentina, Morocco, Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, his most notable works are: *

* Chamrousse - Le village d'enfants de Bachaboulou *

San Sicario Sansicario (also spelled San Sicario) is a ''frazione'' of the ''comune'' of Cesana Torinese (Metropolitan City of Turin) in Piedmont, north-western Italy. It lies at 1,700 m in the Val Susa and has a population of 93 people. It is a famous ...

- Clos de la Chapelle * Pila Gressan - Residence Gorraz

References

* ''l'Anarchitecte, Philippe Révil''
History of Courchevel
* Philippe Révil, Raphaël Helle, ''Les pionniers de l'or blanc'', (2004), page 84, {{DEFAULTSORT:Chappis, Laurent 1915 births 2013 deaths 20th-century French architects French military personnel of World War II French prisoners of war in World War II People from Aix-les-Bains World War II prisoners of war held by Germany