Jacques Couëlle
# Jacques Couëlle

Jacques Couëlle (1902–1996) was a French architect, whose work was marked by the movement known as architecture-sculpture.

## Biography

Jacques Couëlle is a self-taught architect. Uncategorised, he remains on the margins of major movements in architecture and in particular the Modern Movement. In 1946 he founded "the Research Centre of natural structures". Nicknamed "the architect of billionaires" he has made exceptional homes.

The architecture of Jacques Couëlle, with its sculptural forms of concrete designed and carved, evokes the movement of architecture-sculpture born after the war.

The specificity of Couëlle's architecture is its relationship to nature. His houses fit perfectly into their natural environment because they borrow their forms. They are "home-landscape". This relationship with nature is associated with Antoni Gaudí's organic architecture like the famous Park Güell (1900–1914) in Barcelona, where the paths carved into the slope as caves follow the contours of the land.

An eccentric character, he was a friend of Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. For his artistic merits, he was awarded the Legion of Honour at the French Academy.

He worked together with his son Savin Jacques Couëlle (1929–2020).

## Achievements

* Bastide Saint-François (1925–1936) in the Alpes-Maritimes
* Villa Goupil in Chevreuse (78)
* Village Castellarras-le-Vieux (1955–1963) on the Côte d'Azur
* Hotel Cala di Volpe (1962) in Sardinia
* The House stones at Louveciennes (1994)
* Villa Super, Cannes
