Description
This house, built in 2003 by Jean-Pierre Lafargue of the Lafargue et Lapassade agency for a couple of collectors and lovers of contemporary art, is an exemplary example of contemporary architecture. This Californian-inspired concrete house is a manifesto of modern architecture: vast, bright and open to the outdoors.
Built on a small hillside, the house backs onto the slope of the land. The plot offers a very pleasant environment: the house is set in the middle of the 1,500 m² garden, next to a pine forest. Set into the slope, the terrace overlooks the valleys and takes full advantage of the privileged wooded location.
The 200 m2 house is arranged over two levels. The upper level comprises a large open-plan living room, extending onto a vast terrace with swimming pool, and three bedrooms, each with its own bathroom. The lower level includes a guest bedroom with bathroom, a storeroom and a games room.
Situated on the Landes coast, Seignosse is a small seaside resort that began to develop in the 1980s. This small town, situated next to Hossegor and 5 minutes from the sea, stretches along the dunes. Although it has remained very unspoilt, it is increasingly being courted by people looking for a better quality of life, who are making it their main residence. Schools, a library, shops and sports facilities (including a popular golf course) are all nearby.
An interplay of levels and materials
This house, built using modern materials such as precious wood, glass, steel and concrete (white on the facade, black on the floor), shows that contemporary architecture can be beautifully integrated into its natural surroundings.
Inside, the architect has used half-levels to modulate the space and integrate the house into the topology of the land. The house offers a beautiful space bathed in light thanks to the large, undulating bay window that opens the main room onto the garden, and the zenithal lighting provided by the bay windows.
Lafargue and Lapassade Agency
Lafargue et Lapassade, architects founded in 1977 and based in Saint-Vincent de Tyrosse (40230), has built around a hundred houses and numerous facilities.
Like the houses designed by star Provencal architect Rudy Ricciotti, the villa designed by Lafargue et Lapassade is characterised by the use of noble, raw materials (concrete, glass, wood and steel), and by the “revelation of the site”: the house and swimming pool, by their horizontal shape, follow the topology of the land and blend into the vegetation.
As the owners wish to remain anonymous, the house has not been published for the time being.
The Basque coast has a remarkable Art Nouveau and Art Deco heritage. Significant works by renowned architects such as Sauvage, Niermans, Pingusson, Patout and Mallet-Stevens were built between the wars. During this period, considered to be the golden age of the holiday resort, many villas were built by poets and writers living in the towns of Hossegor and Biarritz. Some remarkable buildings were also constructed, such as the Atrium Casino and the Hôtel Splendid in Dax (André Granet, 1928), a symbol of Art Deco architecture in the region.
Over the last fifteen years or so, this heritage has been promoted and protected: four books have been devoted to the architecture of the Basque Coast, the exhibition “Architecture of Biarritz and the Basque Coast from the Belle Epoque to the 1930s” paid tribute to it in 1990, and several remarkable buildings have been protected as Historic Monuments, including Joseph Hiriart’s Villa Leïhorra (1926) in 1992.
