Maurice Sauzet, Creator of Natural Architecture

Born in 1927 in Ardèche, Maurice Sauzet studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, within Charles Lemaresquier’s studio, and later at the École Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris, from which he graduated in 1958. The following year, he traveled to Japan with his wife, Francine Luccioni, who had been invited to Kobe to train teachers in Parisian couture.

Once there, he joined the office of architect Junzo Sakakura, a former student of Le Corbusier. It was in this setting that he discovered the Japanese way of conceiving and building space, and he was entrusted with his very first house project for industrialist Miyamoto in Osaka (1960). As the only Frenchman in the firm, he came into contact with many visiting Western architects, including Jean Prouvé and Françoise Choay, whom he guided through the temples of Nara and Kyoto.

Upon his return to France in the early 1960s, Maurice Sauzet began collaborating with architects Jean Parente and Claude Vilfour, as well as with builder Jean Prouvé, with whom he had maintained contact. Drawn to Prouvé’s innovative approach, he worked alongside him on the construction site of the Villa Seynave in Beauvallon in 1963, together with Neil Hutchinson, Jean Parente, and Claude Vilfour.
At the same time, his first projects designed on French soil followed directly in the lineage of architectural modernism. He drew inspiration in particular from principles developed by Jean Prouvé, such as the structural core conceived for the Maison des Jours Meilleurs project and implemented at Villa Seynave.

However, finding little lasting fulfillment in the practice of architecture—shaped at the time by the context of postwar Reconstruction and profound changes within the profession—he resigned from the Order of Architects in 1967 and turned toward urban planning. He founded the Atelier d’urbanisme varois and became a professor at the School of Architecture of Marseille-Luminy.

This change in scale combined with a full integration of environmental thinking renewed his perception of the architectural project. He then began designing his own house, seeing the construction as a prototype for a new kind of architecture that reconnects people with their environment. He returned to the Order of Architects and became the architectural advisor for the Var department. After completing his house in 1974, the first example of Natural Architecture, he returned to independent architectural practice and developed a constructive philosophy tailored to each project

His work quickly found a private clientele, with more than 300 individual housing projects completed since 1971.

Maurice Sauzet challenges the rational approach of Western architecture, inherited from classical teachings and the modern movement, by adding a sensory and experiential dimension. He bases his design on principles that place perception and the senses at the center of both the process and the outcome of a project.

His constructive approach makes individual experience central to the design. The path through a building is carefully composed, with subtle interruptions such as a step, a gentle slope, or an obstacle to navigate. Openings frame views and guide the gaze toward selected pieces of the landscape, natural or designed. The line between inside and outside blurs, giving way to sheltered intermediate spaces under wide roof overhangs and floor surfaces that extend into the garden.

Sauzet creates spaces where the connection between people and architecture is built through continuous sensory engagement. Movement, sight, touch, and smell keep occupants grounded in the present, making the experience almost meditative. Each space is carefully composed to evoke well-being and serenity, reconnecting people with their environment.

This emotional approach to living spaces was born during his stay in Japan, where Maurice Sauzet was deeply influenced by the local architecture of temples, teahouses, and houses, so different from classical Western architecture. Inspired by construction methods, techniques, materials, and above all by Japanese building philosophy, Sauzet initiated a radical break in his architectural thinking.

He moved away from the modernist blank-slate approach and functionalist standards, turning instead toward ancestral building traditions. Settled in Provence, he discovered in the vernacular architecture of southern France a way of building rooted in human sensibility. The materials and forms of this architecture allowed him to create a dialogue with what he had learned in Kobe. It was at this time that he abandoned mass-produced housing and efficiency-driven design in favor of a relational and contextual approach, tailored to each project, its site, and its client.

If Maurice Sauzet’s constructive philosophy and his concept of Natural Architecture represent a unique path in the French architectural scene, they are also rooted in the historical dialogue with critical currents that helped mark the end of the Modern Movement and rethink its legacy. Following the international experiments of Team X, which integrated the human sciences into design during the 1950s and 1960s, and echoing the principles of Critical Regionalism that emerged in the 1970s, Sauzet based the meaning and legitimacy of architecture on a new kind of complexity, one that resists the simplification and standardization inherited from the International Style.

The design of a house applying the principles of Natural Architecture begins with a careful study of the site’s environmental and climatic conditions. Each project, whether a new building or a renovation, is based on what already exists, natural or built. All elements of the structure are drawn using traditional methods to create a coherent and functional plan in line with the client’s program. Using existing vegetation, rocks, or walls, Maurice Sauzet develops open, fan-shaped plans oriented toward the panorama, with long roof slopes covered in warm tiles that blend seamlessly into the Mediterranean landscape.

The second phase of creation begins with the architect bringing his subjectivity into play to enrich the space with a sensory dimension. Architectural elements go beyond their structural function and embody the designer’s intention. More than mere supporting structures, walls become tools and mediums for this phenomenological approach to space, guiding perception or concealing views toward the landscape. The dwelling unfolds as a sequential journey, marked by solids and voids, shadow and light, and spaces and counter-spaces.

This poetic composition of space embodies an art of living open to emotion, complexity, and the beauty of the world. It can be read as a celebration of nuance, experience, and wonder.

Espace Sauzet et Carballar Architectes
534, Avenue J.Kennedy
83140 SIX-FOURS
T : 04 94 07 84 30
www.sauzet-architectes.fr

Emilie Bloch