Ricardo Bofill: Les Années françaises/The French Years

Arts & Photography

Champenois, Michèle

Serrell, Dominique

Architecture

Editions Norma

From the white plastic bed for the Prisunic catalogue (1966) to the Culbuto armchair issued by Knoll, and from the Lip watch to the private apartments of the Élysée Palace, Paris, (1983), the furniture and objects conceived by Marc Held have been emblematic of the renewal of French design, following the line of Scandinavians such as Alvar Aalto and Arne Jacobsen... With his gallery L'Échoppe on the rue de Seine, Paris, and then with his agency, the designer and architect Marc Held also took part in major projects for IBM and Renault. This book traces fifty years of design, whose success with the public at large has contributed to a great liberation in our style of life. The generosity of his vision has remained faithful to the humanist values that guided his childhood in Bagnolet, where he was born in 1932. Having settled in Greece, on the island of Skopelos, over twenty years ago, Marc Held still continues to build houses and furnish them with his creations, working closely with Greek craftsmen. Text in English and French.

Marc Held: 50 Years of Design

Decorative Arts & Design

Born into the American aristocracy, Elizabeth Eyre de Lanux abandoned high society to pursue an artistic career. Starting her training with Constantin Brancusi, she then arrived in Paris in 1919, following her marriage to French diplomat and writer Pierre de Lanux. She soon met the designer Eileen Gray. Eyre took over Gray's research on laquer and continued experimenting with innovative materials not previously used in furniture, namely cork, amber and linoleum. With Evelyn Wyld, she created a literary universe in which the poetry of her rugs, blended with furniture and lamps in totally new ways, all in an environment of muted shades and modern comfort. An ambitious artist in the Surrealist Paris of the interwar years she wanted to believe in a peaceful future. But the crash of 1929 and World War II sounded the death knell for the career of this fresh new talent, ensuring that her creations became the rarest of objects. A bridge between the pioneering Eileen Gray and the rational Charlotte Perriand, like them, Eyre de Lanux drew inspiration from Japonism. Neither poor, nor stripped bare, her rare architectured interiors have remained secret until now. Elizabeth Eyre de Lanux is a recognised name but a forgotten talent. With Eileen Gray, Eyre de Lanux, Charlotte Perriand and Maria Pergay, the four cardinal points have now been identified.

Eyre de Lanux: An American Decorator in Paris

History & Criticism

A complete monograph on Olivier Gagnère, ceramist, glass-maker, and furniture designer: an alchemist of fire and iceOlivier Gagnère appeared on the French design scene in the 1980s. Through his contact with the Memphis group of Ettore Sottsass in Milan, he developed his spirit of fantasy, great formal liberty, all with a touch of humor. In Japan, on the island of Kyushu, he immersed himself in the ancestral craftsmanship of the porcelain makers in the studios of Arita.He designed his earliest pieces of furniture for Artelano and Pierre Staudenmeyer's Galerie Néotù. He went on to collaborate with the Galerie Maeght to create works in Murano glass and with the Galerie Edition Limitée for works in earthenware. In 1994, his designs for the interior of the café Marly, in the Louvre, brought him great renown and have led to many collaborations with crystal works Saint-Louis, porcelain manufacturer Bernardaud, En attendant les Barbares... With Olivier Gagnère's artful mastery of every material, he is just as at ease working with porcelain as with iron, crystal, wood, leather or bronze. He blends simple and timeless forms with carefully sized volumes, in a range of bright contrasting colors. Steeped in the most classical traditions, he marks every one of his creations with a gesture, a demeanor that is a signature of his times.Text in English and French.

Olivier Gagnère

<ul>
<li>Designer of the famous Culbuto armchair manufactured by Knoll, Marc Held is also the architect of eight spectacular villas in Greece </li>
<li>Beautiful pictures of Greek contemporary architecture and landscapes </li>
<li>This book pays homage to the complete journey through the creation of eight villas including drawing, plans, and pictures</li>
</ul>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.

Marc Held - Skopelos