Maison Louis Carré: Alvar Aalto's Only Building in France

Forty kilometres from Paris, on a hill in the Yvelines, hides Alvar Aalto's only French work: the house the great gallerist Louis Carré commissioned from him in 1956 — on condition that it be beautiful « from every side, like a sculpture ».

The Total Work

Aalto designed everything: the copper roof pitched like the hillside, the undulating ceiling in red Finnish wood that carries the light from the hall towards the sitting room, the door handles, the lighting, the furniture — and even the garden, tuned to the view from each window. The walls were conceived for the Légers, Picassos and Klees of the Carré collection.

The Franco-Finnish Dialogue

Whitewashed Normandy brick, Carrara marble, Nordic pine and birch: the house weds materials as it weds cultures. This is luxury according to Aalto — no effect, a continuous rightness, that « curved functionalism » that set the tone from Artek to Scandinavian design as a whole.

Visiting

Rescued and opened to the public by the Franco-Finnish association that manages it, the house can be visited at weekends by appointment, its original furniture still in place.

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