Marc Held’s book, "SKOPELOS - The landscapes and vernacular architecture of an Aegean Island", is available in 3 languages (English, Greek and French) and you will find it in many local shops of the island, as well as in the Folklore Museum of Skopelos. Beautifully produced with many photographs of Skopelos houses, it is a pleasing object to browse through if either you have been to Skopelos or if you are interested in vernacular, and particularly Greek, architecture. Beneath its surface, however, it is many other things. For the architect, artist, or historian; the owner, restorer and builder of houses; or for the cultural tourist there is much to catch both the eye and the intellect.

   Far grater in scope than a technical guide or an exhaustive description, this book proposes a complete way of life, a cultural enterprise! Marc is in fact reviving the idea of philhellenism as a way forward.

Availability - The book is available in 3 languages; English, French and Greek. It is for sale on local shops and the Folklore Museum of Skopelos, at €42.

   After twenty years of looking and listening, Marc Held reveals and shares his know-how, so that our eyes are aware of the light, the sea, the rocks and the trees. So that our ears are moved by the wind and the history. So that our hands venture to discover the pleasure of touching and polishing. So that our plans accommodate necessity, continuity, identity. This book embodies the encounter between an author and life on the island of Skopelos. --- Jack Lang

   The lessons of utter simplicity in architecture which Marc Held sets out in this book are based on exchange and reciprocity rather than on teaching from on high. They are designed to teach owners what to demand of their architects, and to teach architects how to anticipate what owners need before they ask for anything. It is a question of lessons given and received. lessons in sensibility, principally of respect of the humble, contact with the land and love for one's fellow human beings. --- Petros Martinidis