Village of Foetuses

THE HOUSE

It looks like a combination fallout shelter, Indian hut and lion's den. It is embedded in a hillside, and the only straight lines in it are the floors. The roof on one level is made of grey, knobby lead, on another level it is covered by two feet of earth and undulating lawn. Doors and windows are odd-shaped holes in the thick, earth-colored walls.

This all-but-completed building is the first of 50--ranging in price from $125,000 to $165,000--which will make up a housing development for millionaires on the slopes of the Maritime Alps towering above the beaches of the French Riviera. The designer of all these houses at Castellaras-le-Neuf (New Castellaras) is a razor-tongued, 62-year-old French architect who scorns higher education, the construction industry, straight lines, and almost everything about architecture.

Youthful Indiscretion. Says Jacques Couelle: "I believe in ignorance. You have to be able to read and write and count, but that's all." He says, "Construction and prostitution are the oldest professions--and neither has evolved." He says, "The floor of a building can be level, but all the rest must be movement." He says, "I am disgusted with architecture," and he scoffs at glass-box modern houses because they are "contrary to the purpose of housing, which is to go back to the womb."

Son of an art expert, Couelle dabbled in architecture as a young man. In 1925 he designed a "13th century" chateau at Castellaras on the slopes of the Maritime Alps above Cannes for a New York stockbroker who wanted a proper setting for his medieval art collection. Couelle quit the profession and founded his own "Center of Research in Natural Structure." In 17 years he took out more than 100 patents for new structural materials--but built nothing. Then five years ago, he took Paris Banker Pierre Beckhardt for a drive to show him "a mistake I made when I was young"--the stockbroker's chateau.

Abode of Instinct. Enraptured by Couelle's collection of housing icono-clasms, Beckhardt decided it might be profitable for his bank to invest in a Couelle-designed development, and he arranged to purchase the chateau and 125 acres around it. Couelle's first project was to create Old Castellaras, which he did by building 91 houses (from $30,000 to $100,000) around the chateau. Most of them looked like provincial farmhouses from the outside, were startling only in that there were a few tricky Couelle nuances inside (odd-shaped staircases, sculptured fireplaces). They sold quickly, but the brochure apologized because they were so prosaic: "For reasons of commercial prudence and topographical necessity, Couelle had to limit his fantasy."

When the architect started work on New Castellaras last year, there were no such limitations. Said Couelle: "My dream is to make an abode of instinct, like an animal's."

Couelle's abodes are influenced by flora as well as fauna, as, for instance, his staircases. "Like plants--they curl," explains Couelle. "It is a law of nature. Stairs must curl, and they must not be shaped regularly. They must have irregularities so you shift your weight. You can run up and down my staircases all day without tiring."

Brave Banker Beckhardt has also gone all out for instinct. Trumpeted he last week, in words that would freeze the mind of any FHA man: "Castellaras is a village of foetuses."

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