Back in the ‘sixties, the old farmhouse on Île de Porquerolles featured in Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le fou. Edouard Carmignac came across it later, fell completely in love with it and determined to turn it into an art centre.
Île de Porquerolles is part of a national park and is officially listed as an “exceptional space”. That’s the setting for Villa Carmignac, once a farmhouse and now a thoroughly eco-friendly “villa”. The transformation involved a major challenge: to maintain a coherent architectural language, achieving the right spatial configuration to display art and welcome visitors in comfort without altering the contours of the house, and to harmonise it with the gardens and surrounding nature. The project, entrusted to architects GMAA, opens to visitors this June. Inside the villa, a cross-shaped space opens up: an organised space without divisions. A water ceiling above the central part casts a magical light all around. Outside, you can stroll around the sculpture gardens: on the north side an orchard and vegetable garden with immersive artworks, on the south a landscaped scrubland with figurative sculptures. From there you can venture into the forest. The Foundation will be putting on a temporary exhibition every year, taking 50 visitors at a time. Indoors everyone goes shoeless, as in Asian homes and temples. You have to book, of course, and that’s just as well because with so few people you can simply let the place work its magic on you. For a leisurely exploration of the aesthetic world of Edouard Carmignac, an atypical art collector as well as a seasoned financier.
Tous les jours,
du 2 juin au 4 novembre
Villa Carmignac, Porquerolles
Informations et réservations : fondationcarmignac.com
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