Marc Held - Skopelos

Marc Held made history in 1965 with his famous Culbuto armchair and followed it in 1966 with furniture manufactured by Prisunic. Over a period of fifty years, he created some 150 furniture pieces, notably participating in the interior design of the apartments in the Élysée Palace in 1983. Beginning in the 1970s, he also designed singular works of architecture, for individuals and for corporate clients such as IBM. At the end of the 1980s he chose to focus entirely his passion when he settled on the Greek island of Skopelos. Interested in vernacular architecture, he dedicated a widely acknowledged book on Greece, Maisons de Skopelos, précis d’architecture in 1994, to it. It was also on Skopelos where over a period of thirty years he built eight exceptional villas: Lemonia, Maistros, Nina, Loukas, The Temple, Mourtia, Myrto and Kapsari. Each house is an architectural manifesto in its own right. These eight villas, in spectacular locations beside the sea, built with local materials and in accordance with the construction techniques of the island – all the artisans were from there – with the magical landscapes in which they are integrated, are eight lessons on the notion of genius loci, which so inspired Marc Held’s architecture. Photographed by Deidi von Schaewen – with spectacular shots taken via drone-mounted cameras – his eight beautiful villas are also presented with his drawings and plans developed during their conception phases. Text in English and French.