By Jacques Barsac

Architect, town planner, and designer Charlotte Perriand (1903–1999) gave her visionary genius to the service of mountain construction, from Saint-Nicolas-de-Véroce to Méribel, from the Belleville valley to Les Arcs in Savoie, as well as in China. By combining her love of the mountains with her professional activity, most of her pre-war architectural projects were related to skiing and mountain climbing. Before the emergence of paid leave, she specialised in prefabricated habitation for leisure, in order to make such accommodation accessible to many. A pioneer in bioclimatic architecture, she designed vegetated roofs and prefabricated constructions by making use of materials found on site and combining local craftsmanship with a modern approach. From 1967 to 1989, she devoted her time to the creation of two resorts, Arc 1600 and Arc 1800, in one of the largest skiable domains in France. It was the first time in the history of architecture that a woman managed a team of architects charged with housing 25,000 people. In addition to the interior architecture of all the habitations, she piloted the town planning for both resorts and most of their buildings’ architecture, in collaboration with Gaston Regairaz and Bernard Taillefer for Arc 1800.