Vortrag bei der Rätischen Vereinigung für Familienforschung

Christoph Luzi: Klosters – vom Walserdorf zum Hollywood on the Rocks

"At the back of the valley lives a coarse, foul wild breed of people ... A visit to this valley is not recommended," says a travelogue from the 19th century. This refers to Klosters or the Klosterser. This unflattering description was created at a time when the paths and roads in Prättigau were more of an obstacle than an access, and recommended accommodation was extremely rare. With the advent of tourism at the end of the 19th century, as tourism was called at the time, the world in the rear Prättigau changed like hardly ever before or since. Soon English and French were being discussed, stars and starlets from film, theatre, art and culture came to the "Hollywood on the Rocks" and a little later today's King Charles declared Klosters his preferred winter holiday home.
In the 20th century, Klosters developed from an agrarian Walser village to an internationally renowned tourist resort. The lecture traces these major social upheavals and asks about the role of images and narratives in the emergence of the Klosters tourist dream factory, where real values are created from ideas.
Dr. Christoph Luzi grew up in Klosters and studied cultural studies at the University of Lucerne and earned his doctorate in history. Today he works as a research assistant at the Walser Association of the Grisons and is head of the Department of Culture in Davos.