Laurent Chappis

Who is Laurent Chappis?

Laurent Chappis was an architect and town planner, born in Aix-les-Bains, France. He created the French ski resort of Courchevel 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 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 esthetiques. This led him to be nicknamed the Anarchitecte. In the 1960s he was appointed as a United Nations expert on mountain development. A nomination that came not from his native France but from Italy.