Villa Cavrois

Villa Cavrois is a spectacular modernist building tucked away in Croix, not far from Lille in Northern France. Built between 1929 and 1932, it was designed by architect Robert Mallet-Stevens for industrialist Paul Cavrois. The villa was intended as a home for the Cavrois household which included seven children and a number of domestic servants.  The family fortune had been made from two spinning operations and dye-works. Hailing from neighbouring Roubaix, he married his brother's widow and together they had four children to add to her three from the first marriage.

The villa makes a spectacular impact on this green, semi-rural area due to its striking yellow brick structure which is supported by a concrete frame. Mallet-Stevens was also responsible for a number of Parisian villas built between 1926 and 1929 in the street now named for him. Beautiful as his Parisian buildings are, Cavrois is surely his masterpiece.

The architect was not the first choice for the commission. Jacques Greber had been engaged to design the house in 1925 but his proposals were not finalised. Cavrois preferred to employ Mallet-Stevens who began drawing up plans in 1929. Wanting to convince the family of his approach he took the couple to Hilversum in the Netherlands to show them the Willem Dudok designed Town  Hall. Sold on the modernist style, the couple agreed to this approach for their home including the facades being covered with those wonderful yellow bricks. Work was completed in 1932 and the house was inaugurated on July 5th with the marriage of their daughter Genevieve. Despite this being during a period of economic crisis, the wedding was an opulent affair. Flowers were dropped from an airplane in honour of the newlyweds and after nightfall, Andre Salomon the lighting engineer orchestrated a mise en lumiere.

Mallet-Stevens set out his design principles for the villa in his book. Une demure 1934 (A 1934 home). These included making use of the most up to date technology including central heating, ventilation and lifts as well a telephone and a radio in every room. Furthermore the villa was designed with separate areas for receiving guests, for carrying out domestic tasks, for the parents, for the children and for sport and leisure.

The Second World War began just seven years after the house was completed and between 1940 and 1944 it was confiscated by the occupying German army and sustained damage at the War's end. The Mallet-Stevens had died in 1945 and so when the family returned in 1947, Monsieur Cavrois requested another architect, Pierre Barbe to add two apartments for the elder sons.

The family remained in the villa until 1985 before it was sold to a real estate company that wanted to subdivide the park. The new owners ceased maintaining the building which became prey to looters and despite being listed as a national monument was allowed to become dilapidated. Credit for saving the villa must go to the Association de Sauvegarde de la Villa Cavrois, founded in 1990. The organisation ran an intensive media campaign supported by several of the world's leading architects including Tadao Ando and Renzo Piano. Eventually the state stepped in, purchasing the property in 2001 and handing it to the Centre des Monuments National at the end of 2008. 

Restoration work began in 2004 and included removing the vegetation growing on the exterior, reinforcing the main structural elements and as far as possible, preserving the original materials. Some of the features added by Barbe as an extension of his 1947 commission were deemed to be detrimental to Mallet-Stevens' work and removed. Replacement bricks had to be manufactured for those beyond repair or missing. The interior was also in very poor condition but the existence of early documents and photographs aided the work of restoration.

The villa is now open to the public. Approaching through the park and the former caretaker's pavilion, the first view of the house and its yellow exterior is quite breathtaking. The varying heights and masses, recesses and glazed surfaces make it difficult to know where to look first. The main doors are flanked by beautiful curved brickwork, reminiscent of the entrance to number 10 Rue Mallet-Stevens in Paris. A canopy supported by rounded brick pillars protects visitors from the elements whilst light filters through from above by means a circular glazed element.

The glazed elements of the facade include both austere, narrow horizontal windows in the "box" shaped sections as well as a "thermometer" at the rear which runs the length of a staircase connecting all floors. The roof terrace includes a long pergola and even here, the yellow bricks are in evidence, being used as tree planters. Other elegant features include the concrete diving boards and white hoop ladder for the pool at the rear of the house - although the pool looks rather shallow for diving today! This feature demonstrates nicely the play of light and shadow on the villa with the hoops reflected on the bricks. 

The interior is equally striking. Materials used include opaline glass, white marble for the stairs with black marble for the risers, aluminium wall covers, pear wood and ceramic tiles. The salon-hall is especially impressive, occupying a large space and overlooking the park. The showstopper is the yellow Sienna marble fireplace and built in bench seats. Several of the rooms contain original furnishings all of which were designed by the architect. Much of the furniture had been sold in 1987 but the original inventory made it possible to recover some items which are now on display. They have been placed according to the layout shown in photographs from the 1930's.

Much as I like that fireplace, my favourite internal feature has to be the staircase linking all of the floors at and above ground level. Despite being encased with a curved glass thermometer, the staircase is not of the spiral style, rather a more conventional angled backwards and forwards design that lends itself beautifully to the zig-zag patterns on the risers and under the steps. This is a sharp contrast with the shapes caused by the play of light on the rounded landings, reflecting the window-frames. 

The works were completed in 2015. Since 2012 Villa Cavrois has been part of an international conservation programme designed to protect important 20th century houses - the Iconic Houses programme, furthering assuring the future of Mallet-Stevens' wonderful work.

Details of when the Villa is open for visits can be found here.

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Paris, a tale of three architects part 2 - Rue Mallet-Stevens

Rue Mallet-Stevens is a small, private street just off the Rue du Docteur Blanche in Paris. It is a short walk from the Jasmin metro station on the corner of Rue Mozart and Rue Jasmin in Auteuil, in the 16th arrondissement. It is a very small street - just 77 metres by 7, but its a little slice of heaven.

When I visited, it was a grey and occasionally rainy December morning and that famous Parisian light wasn't at its best, but it really didn't matter as I was able to wander up and down the street, gazing at each of the beautiful creations of architect Robert Mallet-Stevens, taking pictures to my heart's content and enjoying the feeling of just being there.

The street was built between 1926 and 1929 and contains six houses designed by our man. The street is composed of four housing blocks with a cul-de-sac ending. There are ateliers at ground floor level with residential units above. The units are constructed in white with splashes of yellow, red and black from particular features on each building and great play is made with recesses, towers and protruding roofs, experimenting with volume. He referred to this project as a "manifesto" of modern architecture, stating "the architect sculpts one single massive block: a house". He also designed many of the interior fixtures, fittings and furnishings.

Detail of entrance to 10 Rue Mallet-Stevens, home of the architect

At the time of building, he received criticism for the complexity of the architecture. However, this did not stop several prominent artists and people supportive of the arts from wanting to live there. Number 10 was the home and studio of sculptors Joel and Jean Martel. Number 8 was home to the pianist Mme Reifenberg, number 7 was occupied by Daniel Dreyfus and numbers 3/5 by one Mme Allatini. Number one at the bottom of the cul-de-sac and different in style to the other houses is the caretakers cottage. Mallet-Stevens himself lived at number 10. The street was declared a national monument in 1975, but unfortunately not before many of the interiors had been changed and the furnishings dispersed.

Contrasting yellow detail with white blocks - I love the approach to volume

Robert Mallet-Stevens was born in Paris in March 1886, the son and grandson of art collectors. Architecture was clearly in the blood as the Palais Stoclet in Brussels was designed by Viennese artist Josef Hoffman for his uncle. He studied at the Ecole Speciale d'Architecture in Paris, during which time he wrote Guerande, a book about relationships between different art forms. Graduating in 1906 he began writing for the British magazine Architectural Review and wrote enthusiastically about McKintosh, the Wiener Werkstatte and De Stijl. He went on to publish a magazine called La Gazette des 7 Arts and also founded the  Club des amis du 7eme art. He worked on the magazine with Italian writer Riccioto Canudo, who interestingly is thought to have flirted with fascism in its early days - interesting because of developments later on in Mallet-Stevens' life.

As well as designing ateliers and residential properties, shops, factories and even a fire station, he was also involved in cinema, designing film sets (as did many European artists during this period). His main achievement in this discipline is believed to be the sets he designed for Marcel L'Herbier's silent film of 1924, L'Inhumaine (see short clip below). Surrealist superstar Man Ray is said to have been inspired by Mallet-Stevens' design for the Villa Noailles in his film Les Mysteres du Chateau du De.

Mallet-Stevens had a taste for the finer things in life. His favourite perfume was Jicky by Geurlain. He smoked Lucky Strike cigarettes using a monogrammed black lacquer cigarette holder and he loved fine tailoring. He was familiar with a number of the leading lights in Paris' cultural scene during the 1920's and 1930's, including fashion designer Paul Poiret for whom he began work in the early 1920's on designing a home at Mezy-sur-Seine a short distance from Paris. Sadly Poiret went bankrupt and was unable to pay for the building to be completed. By the time it had a new owner, Romanian actress Elvira Popescu and by the time she was able to have the work completed, Mallet-Stevens was in no position to resume work. France was under German occupation and together with hs Jewish wife he fled to the Vichy controlled part of the country. He died in 1945 having given instructions for all of his papers to be destroyed - an instruction that was carried out. There are other Mallet-Stevens buildings still standing outside Paris and I hope to be able to visit them at some point.

Caretaker's house, Rue Mallet-Stevens

This turned out to be a wonderful day as I also made a pilgrimage to several Hector Guimard buildings and on the way to Rue Mallet-Stevens, I passed 4 Rue Jasmin, which is itself a thing of great beauty! Designed by architect Jean Boussard and built in 1911 it has several art nouveau features but the star of the show is the lobby with its amazing mosaic floor and lower walls. My luck was in as I noticed the door to the lobby slightly ajar as a workman was carrying out some maintenance work. He was happy for me to come in and take photos - one of which you can see below.

Lobby to 4 Rue Jasmin - building designed by Jean Boussard

For more pictures of Rue Mallet-Stevens, see here.