The Bernard house : a built utopia

by Jacinthe Gigou

From the road, the red bubbles of the house are visible below. But as you approach, the property becomes more discreet. Access is restricted, requiring permission to enter the private estate leading to the house. Descending a few steps reveals an immense cluster of intertwined bubbles, forming an 800-square-meter organism complemented by terraces, patios, gardens, and solariums. Across the way, the endless sea stretches out, alongside Jacques Couëlle’s organic constructions at Port-La-Galère and the Bay of Cannes. Who could resist such a paradisiacal landscape ?
The house’s curved volumes evoke seashells, a feminine form, or even a spaceship. The color of the bubbles blends seamlessly with the red hues of the Esterel massif, creating perfect harmony. A gallery winds around them, connecting the different spaces and offering ever-changing perspectives of the surroundings. It’s an architectural promenade that constantly renews itself.
Perfectly adapted to its site, the house clings to the rock like a shell. Each resident has their own bubble, a living space furnished with curved, mobile furniture that adapts to individual needs. At the center, a communal bubble for the entire family spans three levels. The highest level, beneath the dome, is accessible via a staircase reminiscent of a spaceship, leading to a hammock room with a serene sea view. The middle level features a dining room and kitchen framing a semi-circular reception area. Below, two lounges are arranged, one of which overlooks the circular pool facing the sea.
“The starting point is the circle, not in a symbolic or esoteric sense, but as an obvious choice. It structures human behavior and nature. We have a circular field of vision. Conviviality is a circular phenomenon,” Lovag explained in a 1986 interview.

For its new edition, the Genius Loci exhibition-experience took over the Bernard House, showcasing around twenty modern and contemporary artists, many of whom created site-specific works. Organized in partnership with the Fonds de dotation Maison Bernard and curated by Marion Vignal, the event fostered a dialogue between architecture, its natural environment, and the creativity of the invited artists.
Among the exhibited works, the garden particularly captivated visitors with a piece by visual artist Xavier Veilhan (°1963). His installation is situated in front of Antti Lovag’s former studio, independent of the Bernard House, where the architect worked freely. Since 2014, the space has hosted an artist-in-residence program for up to six months. In 2017, artist Emma Dusong (°1982) created the sound piece “Et O,” using her voice to make the house “sing” every day at 5 PM, whether occupied or not.

Xavier Veilhan, passionate about architecture, chose this secluded spot to create a custom piece composed of multiple rays made of rubber, polyester, and stainless steel. Titled “Rays,” the work integrates seamlessly into the studio’s structure, embracing its form with a gesture that is both powerful and minimal. Veilhan’s rays interact with the sunlight, casting shadows on the ground and walls of the studio, complementing Lovag’s work. The piece, in perfect harmony with its surroundings, was acquired by the Fonds de dotation Maison Bernard and will remain permanently on-site.
Inside the house, special mention goes to the folded marbles of American artist David Logan, who shared a common history with Antti Lovag. Like Lovag, Logan settled in Tourette-sur-Loup in 1968, where Lovag spent his final years near the Maison Gaudet. The sculptor, who passed away in 2020, collaborated on the Bernard House project, particularly in designing the travertine floors. The exhibition features three of his pieces placed in the common bubble’s living room: white marbles, twisted and contorted, appearing as soft forms that play with our senses.
The exhibited works engage in a singular and mythical dialogue with Antti Lovag’s masterpiece. They challenge our perceptions, stimulate our senses, and make us active participants in the space.

The success of a built project, especially a home, depends not only on the architect’s talent but also on the vision of the client. The Bernard House would never have been realized without the mutual understanding and shared ideas of its two protagonists : Antti Lovag and Pierre Bernard.
Antti Lovag (1920-2014) was born in Hungary to a Russian father and a Finnish mother. He began studying naval architecture in Stockholm before continuing his education at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1947. He trained under Jean Prouvé and later with Jacques Couëlle and the Haüserman-Costy couple in the 1960s. Living in southern France, Lovag squatted in a friend’s house, nurturing his obsession with nature and the human body. A genius of experimentation, he specialized in lightweight structures and self-construction, drawing inspiration from natural and organic forms. He called himself a “habitologist” rather than an architect, placing human needs at the center of his concerns. “Architecture doesn’t interest me. It’s man, human space, that interests me: creating an envelope around human needs,” he said.
Pierre Bernard (1922-1991), an industrialist in the automotive sector, wanted a vacation home for his family of three children in the Esterel region, which he had fallen in love with. Far from the region’s typical seaside residences, Bernard dreamed of an extraordinary house. He met Antti Lovag during a visit to neighbors’ homes, and from then on, the two men formed a bond that lasted nearly twenty years. After the Bernard House, the industrialist commissioned a second structure a few hundred meters away: the Palais Bulle (1979-1993), acquired by fashion designer Pierre Cardin in 1992. Acting as a patron, Bernard placed complete trust in Lovag, allowing him to experiment freely with materials, spatial organization, and innovative techniques using concrete shells. With an open budget and timeline, Lovag developed his research on-site, even living on the construction site, ultimately bringing a utopia to life.

The construction of the bubbles relies on a concrete shell technique, enabling the liberation of form. To create the bubbles, steel rods are bent to form a cage, over which an iron mesh is placed before spraying concrete, which is held in the lattice. The interiors are insulated with foam and then plastered, a process that is both free and performative for the architect.
At the Bernard House, each time a child turned ten, a new bubble was added and connected to the others. Porthole windows open views to the sky and sea, giving the entire structure a multi-globular, marine-organism appearance. Inside, integrated storage systems offer flexibility to residents and a sense of surprise, evoking primitive caves and habitats. The red Iranian travertine floors in each room feature intricate, surprising patterns, transforming the floors into true works of art.
In 2015, the interior design was completely reimagined by Isabelle Bernard, the client’s daughter, and architect Odile Decq. Together, they created a multicolored space inspired by the pop aesthetic of the 1970s, following the principle “too much is not enough.” The brightly painted concrete creates a continuous interior landscape, blending the rooms into one another. Since this restoration, the Fonds de dotation Maison Bernard has welcomed artists-in-residence each year, with the goal of creating original works in relation to the site and its natural environment.

JACINTHE GIGOU

Jacinthe Gigou, an art and architecture historian, has spent twenty years promoting and disseminating modern architecture. She worked as a curator at CIVA and as director of the heritage agency Arkadia in Brussels until 2020. She co-founded the Brussels Art Nouveau & Art Deco Festival and the Brussels Biennale of Modern Architecture. In 2021, she established Modernista, a platform dedicated to Belgian Modernism. Alongside her curatorial work, she writes about architecture and criticism for various media and co-authored the book   150 houses you need to visit before you die.

Instagram : @modernista.be