ART & ARCHITECTURE / VILLA CARMIGNAC / ÎLE DE POURQUEROLLES

From above, Île de Porquerolles looks a bit like a croissant, a suitable shape for a place so decidedly French. Not as easily accessible as mainland Côte d’Azur, it welcomes fewer foreign tourists, and so the island vibe tends to skew towards summer casual rather than holiday chic. The main part of Villa Carmignac is an old farm house, with the addition of 2,000 square metres of exhibition space, surrounded by a sculpture garden. For those who think they recognize the villa, you might be right: Jean-Luc Gordard’s hit film “Pierre le fou” from 1965, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina, was shot here.

In the 1980s, the architect Henri Vidal turned the farm into a villa. Many years later Vidal, otherwise most famous for (together with Yves Bayard) having designed the Museum of Modern Art in Nice, le MAMAC, invited Édouard Carmignac to the estate to attend a wedding, and the rest is part of French art history. Having immediately fallen in love with the place, Carmignac decided to set up a foundation with the villa as its base, dedicated to contemporary art and photojournalism.

The foundation was created in 2000 and includes an impressive collection of contemporary art, containing more than 300 works, including 17 works by Roy Lichtenstein (which makes it the largest private Lichtenstein collection in France). Other prominent artists featured in the collection include John Baldessari, Sandro Botticelli, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sterling Ruby, Urs Fischer and Andreas Gursky. The Carmignac Photojournalism Award is organized annually and the recipient is awarded 50,000 euro, an exhibition and a catalogue.

As the villa was built in the heart of a National Park, it was strictly forbidden to add further construction to the existing house, and so the art galleries have been built beneath the surface, seemingly without modifying the existing house’s contours. At the centre of the villa is an aquatic ceiling, which lets in natural light and illuminate these “underwater” spaces.

¨Artists from all corners of the world – such as Jeppe Hein, Jaume Plensa, Ed Ruscha and Cornelia Konrads – have been invited to create site-specific artworks, delicately placed among the many flowers, bushes and trees. ¨

The surrounding park is an artwork in itself. Designed by Louis Benech, the underlying philosophy was to, “respect and make known the singular local bio-diversity, thus presented and preserved thanks to the work of the Port-Cros National Park”. Pioneer and endemic plans, such as the Hyères’ lavender trees, the Needle-leaved Broom and Serapias orchid, have been preserved here. The large park has also been replanted with numerous olive trees, and in the northern plain is now a small orchard. Other plants in the garden include eucalyptus, mimosa and various citrus trees (such as tangerines, organs and lemons). Artists from all corners of the world – such as Jeppe Hein, Jaume Plensa, Ed Ruscha and Cornelia Konrads – have been invited to create site-specific artworks, delicately placed among the many flowers, bushes and trees.