Becoming the owner of a historic house can be a daunting prospect. Part caretaker, part curator, you’re in danger of having every aspect of your life, taste, and décor choices placed under extreme scrutiny, with little or no options for alteration or expansion. It helps, therefore, to find a property that is a fully realised masterpiece, without the need for substantial modernisation or restoration; enter, Villa Seynave by Jean Prouvé and Neil Hutchinson and its finely tuned modernist architecture.
A sublime holiday villa in the south of France
This is a modestly sized villa located on the edge of a golf course in Grimaud, a seaside town on the bay of Saint-Tropez in the south of France. Designed as a holiday home, the house was commissioned by a businessman and finished in 1962. The design epitomises the low-profile, lightweight approach that characterises Prouvé’s work. The use of new, lightweight materials like plywood, aluminium, and glass panels give this long, low building an airy feel, with subtly curved exotic wooden panels on the façade, slender mullions and large expanses of glass.
The façade includes curved panels of tropical hardwood
Prouvé was relentless in his pursuit of prefabrication and industrialisation methods for architecture. The Seynave house highlights a few of his methods, such as the prefabricated concrete blocks that are distributed throughout the floorplan, containing the kitchen, storage areas, and bathrooms. Coupled with a lightweight post and beam structure, the cores support the flat roof. Simplicity is the key; the house has no heating, because it was designed for use during the balmy Mediterranean summers. Prouvé worked with architect Neil Hutchinson on the structure, and there are key interior elements, including the kitchen and cabinets, designed by Charlotte Perriand, adding to the sense of occasion and historic value. There is also an integral lighting system by the industrial designer Serge Mouille.
Prefabricated concrete core elements house services and storage
The Villa Seynave is now on the market, on offer through the Paris-based Architecture de Collection website. The designer himself was adamant that a building be no different than a piece of furniture. In recent years, thanks largely to the tireless work of gallerist Patrick Seguin, Prouvé’s reputation (and value) has been transformed by highlighting the sculptural value of his scarce pavilion projects, bringing them onto the international art market as both pieces of architecture at Château La Coste and sculptural objects, collected by the likes of the Museum of Modern Art and the Pompidou Centre.
Unfolding screens can subdivide the space
The villa has been magnificently preserved, with all the original joinery and wall panels, as well as such period pieces as the steel fireplace, sunken conversation pit and sliding partitions to subdivide the space. Despite the verdant outlook (and the proximity of the golf course), the house is just 300m from the region’s beaches.
Prouvé is still best known for his industrialised housing systems, such as the prefab aluminium Métropole houses. One-offs like this modernist villa are rarer, but still display the innovation and experimentation that have become the architect’s legacy
INFORMATION
Villa Seynave, designed by Jean Prouvé and Neil Hutchinson, €3,500,000 via ArchitecturedeCollection.fr
-
Here’s what to order (and admire) at Carbone LondonNew York’s favourite, and buzziest, Italian restaurant arrives in the British capital, marking the brand’s first expansion into Europe
-
Griffin Frazen on conceiving the cinematic runway sets for New York label Khaite: ‘If people feel moved we’ve succeeded’The architectural designer – who helped conceive the sets for ‘The Brutalist’ – collaborates with his wife Catherine Holstein on the scenography for her Khaite runway shows, the latest of which took place in NYFW this past weekend
-
How to travel meaningfully in an increasingly generic worldLauren Ho explores the need for resonance, not reach, in the way we choose to make journeys of discovery
-
‘Landscape architecture is the queen of science’: Emanuele Coccia in conversation with Bas SmetsItalian philosopher Emanuele Coccia meets Belgian landscape architect Bas Smets to discuss nature, cities and ‘biospheric thinking’
-
An apartment is for sale within Cité Radieuse, Le Corbusier’s iconic brutalist landmarkOnce a radical experiment in urban living, Cité Radieuse remains a beacon of brutalist architecture. Now, a coveted duplex within its walls has come on the market
-
The best of California desert architecture, from midcentury gems to mirrored dwellingsWhile architecture has long employed strategies to cool buildings in arid environments, California desert architecture developed its own distinct identity –giving rise, notably, to a wave of iconic midcentury designs
-
A restored Eichler home is a peerless piece of West Coast midcentury modernismWe explore an Eichler home, and Californian developer Joseph Eichler’s legacy of design, as a fine example of his progressive house-building programme hits the market
-
The Architecture Edit: Wallpaper’s houses of the monthWallpaper* has spotlighted an array of remarkable architecture in the past month – from a pink desert home to structures that appears to float above the ground. These are the houses and buildings that most captured our attention in August 2025
-
La Maison de la Baie de l’Ours melds modernism into the shores of a Québécois lakeACDF Architecture’s grand family retreat in Quebec offers a series of flowing living spaces and private bedrooms beneath a monumental wooden roof
-
This cinematic home in Palm Springs sets a new standard for Desert Modern designJill Lewis Architecture and landscape architecture firm Hoerr Schaudt joined forces to envision an exceptional sanctuary
-
Hilborn House, one of Arthur Erickson’s few residential projects, is now on the marketThe home, first sketched on an envelope at Montreal Airport, feels like a museum of modernist shapes, natural materials and indoor-outdoor living
