Designed by architect Christian Schouvey in 1978, this house with its simple, cubic design is a remarkable example of postmodern architecture.
The architecture of this house plays on materials: wood cladding, glass paving stones and coloured render bring the façade to life. While the north facade has a simple parallelepiped volume, the south facade develops a more original shape with an atrium marked by pyramids, sloping roofs that give the house a bird-like silhouette, and a large chimney forming a signpost on the facade.
Inspired by Japanese architecture, Christian Schouvey has designed an open-plan house with sliding wooden partitions. The interior décor is based on colours and materials: red-tinted cement tiles, green-painted radiators and wooden ceilings create a sober, modern setting.
In designing this house, Christian Schouvey drew on a network of varied references. While the pyramids illustrate the post-modern inspiration for the house, its formal monumentality and the relationship between the space it serves and the space it serves place it in the heritage of Louis Kahn. The architect also favours the use of regional materials for this wood-clad Jura house.
Situated close to the Arbois vineyards in the Jura, the house benefits from a remarkable architectural environment. The Jura and the town of Dôle have preserved some exceptional twentieth-century buildings, such as the church of Saint-Jean-l’Evangéliste, built by Anton Korady in 1964. A listed 20th-century heritage site, its roof is suspended from a powerful concrete arch that supports the entire building. Its facades are adorned with grilles created by the sculptor Calka, illustrating the Apocalypse according to Saint John.
Christian Schouvey
Christian Schouvey, a contemporary architect from the Jura region, worked with a wide range of architectural styles, including Louis Kahn, Kisho Kurokawa and Paul Chemetov, before setting up his own practice in the late 1970s. His buildings won him the Poetic Construction Prize in 1988. Since then, Christian Schouvey has made a name for himself with some remarkable contemporary projects, including the media library in Sélestat (1998), the university library of medicine and pharmacy in Besançon (2003) and the media library, cinema and municipal archives in Macon (2007).
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