He was born in Mulhouse to a large, industrious family that had moved from Switzerland to Mulhouse in 1848 to start up a textile business. The family had a holiday home at Partigon. His parents were Henry Spoerry (1879–1966) and Jeanne Schlumberger.[3] Spoerry had three younger sisters: Anne-Marie, a physician, aviator and adventurer,[4] Therese, and Martine.
During World War II, he used an architectural research project in Aix-en-Provence as a cover for working with the French Resistance.[4] In April 1943, he was arrested and deported to Buchenwald and then Dachau.
Career
"My ambition has been to produce a style of architecture that makes the heart sing."
After the war ended, he opened his first architectural firm in Mulhouse where he associated with a significant number of reconstruction projects. In Mulhouse, he was the planner of the new town centre. He also built in Mulhouse the Tour of Europe, the largest structure in contemporary France whose top floor was a revolving restaurant. He also built several residential structures, including Wilson Tower (highest building in the city after the Tour of Europe), the Residence Clemenceau. Residence Pierrefontaine, and others. What is most significance about the work of Spoerry is that he broke with the first principles of Planning CIAM while rediscovering the principles of a dense urbanism. He built and developed several mixed-use, neo-traditional, developments in Europe and North America.[7]
At the end of the 1980s, he was known as a member of Amiic (World Real Estate Investment Organization, Geneva) and was a lecturer, with Jean-Pierre Thiollet and other important people, of some international meetings of this organization (which was dissolved in 1997).[8]
He is associated with the European Urban Renaissance movement. He was an advocate of "vernacular architecture".[6] Spoerry is the author of A gentle architecture, from Port-Grimaud to Port-Liberté, published in 1991.
Apart from the creation of Port Grimaud in Var, Spoerry's major works in France include:
Spoerry was an avid sailor,[9] owning the schooner Amphitrite between 1966 and 1969.[10] He died at his home in Port Grimaud[2] in 1999 and is buried at the church in Port Grimaud.[11]