At the heart of an icon : Antti Lovag’s bubble palace

by Jacinthe Gigou

The appointment is made on a hot summer morning. The metal entrance gate in the shape of a sun reflects the powerful rays of the Mediterranean star. Little by little, the tops of the pink bubbles reveal themselves, revealing a tangle of organic forms. In the background, the azure blue sea shimmers like a multitude of diamonds. We meet up with Roberto, former assistant to Pierre Cardin and current guardian of the temple’s memory. “Welcome to my office,” he says with a smile. And what an office… 1.200 m², 20 rooms, 10 suites, in an area of 8,000 m² of gardens, terraces and ponds, facing the bay of Cannes.

It’s hard to know where the house really starts. Here, there is no main facade, no corners, and even less a straight line. The bubbles fit into each other, hug the steep slope of the Estérel, winding in clusters around three swimming pools with sea views. Inside, a long corridor winds through the property. A few steps absorb the differences in level. Oculi frame a piece of sky or sea and the water from the fountains resonates between the walls, making the house sing. We quickly lose our bearings, “time turns fast here, it’s incredible,” says Roberto.

This strange house with organic lines is the work of Antti Lovag. Born in Hungary in 1920 to a Russian father and a Finnish mother, he first studied naval architecture in Sweden before joining the Beaux-Arts de Paris in 1947, without ever obtaining his diploma. He notably went through the agency of Jean Prouvé, then joined Jacques Couëlle on the Côte d’Azur in the 1960s. Self-taught, Lovag defines himself as a habitologist rather than an architect. Because what interests him is not so much the shape of a house as the way one lives there. For him, the circle is not an aesthetic whim: it stems from the human body, its gestures, and its field of vision. The right angles? An unnatural invention. “In nature, angles do not exist,” he summarized.

During his travels, he is fascinated by the troglodyte habitat. He observes caves and primitive forms. An architecture of instinct, almost archaic, from which he draws a radically modern conception of the habitat. The Palais Bulles does not really take shape from the outside. It grows from the inside. Lovag begins by observing the land, movements and uses, then mounts full-size metal jigs to test the volumes before their realization. The openings are decided according to what they must offer : an elliptical bay frames the horizon, an oculus brings the gaze closer to the vegetation, a skydome catches the sky and the light. An evolutionary architecture, likely to proliferate according to its inhabitants. The bubble becomes the envelope of a living space designed around conviviality, nature and daily needs.

The story begins with another man: Pierre Bernard (1922-1991), a wealthy French industrialist and patron of the arts, who had already entrusted Lovag with his first house in Port-la-Galère, just below. Seduced by the experience, he commissioned in 1979 a more ambitious house, located a few kilometers away, on the hills of Esterel. Between the two men, the project is built almost without limits. “I don’t know what it’s going to look like, I don’t know how long it’s going to take and I don’t know how much it’s going to cost,” Lovag warned at the start of the adventure. A first core was completed in 1984, then the house proliferated. A second phase began in 1985, with the bubbles gradually colonizing the slope. Bernard died in 1991 even though the project was not quite finished.

A year later, Pierre Cardin bought the property at auction. Love at first sight seems almost scripted. Figure of the futuristic fashion of the sixties alongside Paco Rabanne and André Courrèges, Cardin had long since made the circle a signature. Space Age bubble dresses, geometric cutouts, helmets, portholes and silhouettes populate her universe. Faced with this architecture that seems straight out of another planet, the encounter is obvious. “It’s the body of a woman. The bubbles are her breasts; the corridors, her guts. Everything is absolutely sensual,” he said of his new home.

But Cardin also sees the future : the bubble evokes for him both the fetal habitat, the cave of prehistoric man and satellites launched to conquer space. And he doesn’t just put his bags there. “Monsieur Cardin brought his genius by dressing the interior spaces. Two geniuses rub shoulders here,” sums up our guide. The formula is right. To the organic architecture of Lovag, the couturier superimposes his own universe. He entrusts the ten suites to a constellation of young artists, so Patrice Breteau, Jérôme Tisserand, Daniel You, François Chauvin or Gérard Le Cloarec, and installs there his design collection from the 1960s and 1970s. He also draws the strange sculptural seats of the living room, inspired by the plant world and made by the upholsterer Claude Prévost.

Nearly 35 years later, the universe has remained surprisingly intact. “Everything has remained in the original configuration,” continues Roberto, opening the doors to the suites. The beds in the rooms are round, of course. Pipistrello lamps rub shoulders with much more confidential pieces, such as metal lamps by the sculptor Serge Manzon. The sequel, called The Origins of the Universe, switches to an almost surreal cosmic imaginary, evoking Dalí. On the walls, artists invited by Cardin transformed the rooms into so many small worlds. “Each piece invites us to open our curiosity,” continues our guide.

Everywhere, the eye is drawn to a detail, for some of them real technical feats. Like this gigantic bay window that topples with a counterweight, before disappearing 2.50 meters into the ground, erasing in seconds the border between the living room and the pool. The soils are covered with red travertine from Iran, whose color evokes the rock of Esterel. “Cutting it took a lot of work: 2 days to make one square meter,” explains Roberto. And then there’s water, everywhere. It flows from the fountains, cascades and frames us with the sea. A true experience of the place, it disappears and then reappears over basins and windows, like so many eyes focused on the landscape. Here, there is no heating or air conditioning. In the long corridor, a sea breeze naturally circulates and brings its beneficial freshness.

Yet there is one element that does not bear Lovag’s signature: the amphitheater. The initial project already included one, but Cardin wants to give the Palace another cultural dimension and be able to accommodate several hundred people. He abandoned the drawing of Lovag and had the current theatre built by an Italian architect, on the site originally reserved for a tennis court. Facing the bleachers, the infinity of the Mediterranean, which no other setting could match.

With Cardin, the Palace then changed its status from a private residence to a salon and meeting place. Parades, shootings, concerts and galas follow one another, especially during the Cannes Film Festival. Lenny Kravitz spent the night there, remembers Roberto. Jacquemus took a run-up from one of the suites before diving into the pool. More recently, the French band L’Impératrice gave an acoustic concert filmed by ARTE. Anecdotes that nourish the mythology of a place whose access remains jealously guarded.

Pierre Cardin will remain deeply attached to it until his death in 2020. More than a residence, the Palace seems to condense all its obsessions: the future, art, fashion, parties and this constant desire never to redo what has already been done. The Palais Bulles is ultimately neither quite a house nor quite a work of art. It is a world in itself.

The Pierre Cardin legacy continues to travel. This September, a new museum dedicated to the couturier opens its doors in Venice, in the Palazzo Ca’ Bragadin, where Casanova, property of Cardin, is said to have lived. Carried by his great-nephew Rodrigo Basilicati-Cardin, now president of the Maison Pierre Cardin, the place brings together on nearly 1,000 m2 more than 350 pieces – historical and contemporary creations, original designs, haute couture, furniture, lighting and design objects – which trace the multiple facets of the designer. A special place will be reserved for his Utilitarian Sculptures, whose futuristic forms blur the boundaries between art and function. “A dress is like a house: you have to feel at home,” said Cardin. The designer collected places as he drew his clothes: without any real border between art, architecture and fashion.

Pierre Cardin Museum, Santa Croce, Calle de la Regina 2329, Venice

JACINTHE GIGOU

Jacinthe Gigou is an art and architecture historian, specializing in modern heritage. Based in Brussels for over twenty years, she works to promote and spread the architecture of the 20th century through curatorial, editorial and cultural projects. After managing the estate agency Arkadia, she founded in 2021 Modernista, a platform dedicated to Belgian modernism. She regularly collaborates with various media in Belgium and abroad, and has published several books on modernism and brutalism, including Bruxelles moderniste (Racine, 2025), Brutalism in Belgium (Prisme, 2024). She is also attached to external relations at the Faculty of Architecture La Cambre Horta (ULB).

Instagram : @modernista.be