Materials, layouts and light in contemporary alpine interiors — what is genuinely new, and what is a chalet cliché in a new colour.
Alpine design spent decades in a single register: dark timber, sheepskin, a fireplace, a stag. The best contemporary work in the Alps is quietly dismantling that, and the results are more interesting than another reclaimed-barn interior. Larch left pale instead of stained. Windows placed for a specific view rather than for the maximum of glass. Bathrooms that admit daylight. Ceilings kept low because low ceilings are warm.
We look at what the material choices do rather than what they cost: how a room sounds, whether it holds heat, whether the layout works when four people come in wet. We also follow the renovation question that sits under all of it — what to keep of a building that has stood for two hundred years, and what to change.
Design is one of the reasons an address earns a place in a selection (how we choose). To see the results in context, browse hotels in Italy, Switzerland or France.
Our selection of top-rated stays
Free tools built by our editors: answer a few questions and get a genuinely personal recommendation in seconds — no sign-up, help yourself!
All our travel tools →Where to base yourself in each alpine destination, area by area, chosen and written by our editors.
