Villa Paul Poiret in

Mézy-sur-Seine Mézy-sur-Seine (, literally ''Mézy on Seine'') is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. See also *Communes of the Yvelines department An intentional community is a voluntary residenti ...

Yvelines Yvelines () is a department in the western part of the Île-de-France region in Northern France. In 2019, it had a population of 1,448,207.France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, is an early 1920s Cubism-inspired

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

private house originally designed by architect

Robert Mallet-Stevens Robert Mallet-Stevens (March 24, 1886 – February 8, 1945) was an influential French architect and designer. Early life Mallet-Stevens was born in Paris in a house called Maison-Laffitte (designed by François Mansart in the 17th century). H ...

. The house stands in of parkland in Mézy-sur-Seine, to the west of Paris, overlooking the

Seine Valley ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributarie ...

. It is constructed in reinforced concrete in a geometric style, has 25 rooms on three levels, of internal space, an upper terrace with panoramic views, and a corner salon with floor-to-ceiling windows.New York Times 26.11.2010: ''Rescuing a Cubist Icon With French Couture Roots''
Retrieved 14 March 2011 Villa Paul Poiret was commissioned by fashion designer

Paul Poiret Paul Poiret (20 April 1879 – 30 April 1944, Paris, France) was a French fashion designer, a master couturier during the first two decades of the 20th century. He was the founder of his namesake haute couture house. Early life and care ...

in 1921; its building completed in 1925. The house fell into disrepair, and was sold by Poiret in 1930 to actress

Elvira Popescu Elvira Popescu (; in French, Elvire Popesco; 10 May 1894 – 11 December 1993) was a Romanian-French stage and film actress and theatre director. During the 1930s and 1940s, she starred in a number of French comedy films. Life and career Pop ...

, who lived there from 1938 to 1985. Popescu hired the architect Paul Boyer in 1932 to alter the original design to the contemporary Art Deco Paquebot (steamship) style, converting windows to portholes, and rounding-off terrace corners. The house was listed as an historic landmark in 1984. In 1999 the house, which had once more become dilapidated, was bought by Laurent Brun. Under the auspices of the French National Historic Landmark Commission and the Bâtiments de France, (the two bodies responsible for listed buildings), the Mallet-Stevens exterior and the Popescu/Boyer interior have been restored. Villa Paul Poiret is part of the ''Journées de Patrimoine'', (Heritage Days), scheme in which public and private buildings of historic importance are open to the public on the third weekend in September. Image:MalletStevensMezy.jpg, East view Image:MalletStevensMezy1.jpg, Interior (salon)

See also

References

Further reading