Description
This Brutalist-style house, built in 1973 by architect Guy Bisson, is a rare testimony to the thinking and architectural aesthetics of the Mouvement Moderne in the Sarthe region.
Built on a promontory crowning a former marble quarry and overlooking a pond, this house enjoys an impressive view of the surrounding countryside. With a surface area of 210 m², it features open, flowing spaces that make it very convivial: a large volume on two levels unites the dining room, living room, fireplace area and kitchen. The house also includes two bedrooms and two bathrooms.
The property includes a second 85 m² house built a few years later in the same style. It comprises a living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and bathroom. A wooden chalet near the pond can also accommodate guests.
It’s located near Sablé-sur-Sarthe in Mayenne, 1h30 from Paris by TGV.
Spacious, light-filled living spaces
Surrounded by bay windows and punctuated by zenithal skylights, the house is particularly luminous and totally open to nature. It’s an invitation to serenity. The facades, with their Modulor rhythm, are characterized by powerful brick horizontals that give the house its distinctive brutalist aesthetic.
Guy Bisson
Guy Bisson (b. 1932, Philippeville, Algeria) studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Algiers, finishing in Paris in 1958. He founded his own practice in 1961, after working as a trainee for Roland Simounet and Pierre Dufau, then as an assistant to Pierre Vivien.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, Guy Bisson’s activities were divided between the Paris region, where he built school facilities in new towns, and the Sarthe region, where he was a specialist in health-related buildings. In both the Ile-de-France and Pays de la Loire regions, he was a pioneer working on greenfield sites and emerging neighborhoods.
Trained by architects influenced by the Bauhaus, embracing the principles of Le Corbusier and attentive to the talents of Aalto, Kahn, Neutra and Wright, Guy Bisson takes the best of these to create a personal body of work that is well illustrated by his projects in the Sarthe region. These buildings – hospitals, retirement homes and detached houses – are distinguished by their use of brick combined with concrete, and by their well-appointed, generously lit interiors. In the Sarthe region, his buildings are all the more remarkable for being, for the most part, the only surviving examples of the thinking and architectural aesthetics of the Mouvement Moderne.
In 1967, Guy Bisson won the Prix d’architecture de la biennale de Paris for a house built in the Roussillon region, and in 1983 he was nominated for the Equerre d’argent, a prize awarded by Le Moniteur.
