Marc Held: Eco-utopian agitator? Why not ?

 

The man whose one of his emblematic creations is an armchair called Culbuto (1967) kicks into the anthill of megalopolises and denies the city as it is conceived today, a simple product of our society, consumerist and destructive, ready for all abuses for ever more. Basta the deadly megalopolis, ever larger and inhuman for the sole benefit of promoters and other predators of our present times.

 

Response from the utopian architect: draw the contours of his dream city articulated around a new concept of bio-growth.

And the pillars of Marc's dream (and of his wisdom) are: Put an end to speculation on habitat - Establish a return to fraternity and the end of the "struggle for life" - Restore a balance in the sharing of resources - Tender towards “less is more” and this happy sobriety advocated by Pierre Rabhi – Rediscover autonomy and self-management – Educate children in the principle of equal opportunities in order to form free adults ...

 

Self-taught, photographer, designer and French architect, Marc Held was celebrated in the 1960s for his Culbuto armchair and a polyester double bed, designed for Prisunic. In 1983 he was asked to transform the grand salon of the Elysée Palace. In 1978 he built a house in Gif-sur-Yvette which he named "La maison de l'Utopie" a magnificent building of 350 m2 in corten steel, built on a 350 m2 protected natural area and marshland, an architectural challenge. In 1989 he chose to leave IBM to live his Greek period, and went to build in Skopelos, his own house, then about fifteen other residences. On this island in the Aegean Sea, he worked to put Greek craftsmen and their artisanal methods at the heart of his own philosophy: "Skopélos or tradition at the service of modernity".