The Villa Cavrois

A masterpiece by architect Robert Mallet-Stevens, the Villa Cavrois, built in 1932, stands like a modern château on the heights above Roubaix.

Listed as a national monument in 1990 and acquired by the French state in 2001, it is now restored to its original state. After years of neglect, disrepair and vandalising, the villa is at last open to the public.

The visitor can thus appreciate the genius of a highly unusual designer steeped in the Viennese architecture of Adolf Loos and Josef Hoffmann ; Mallet-Stevens also created the Villa Noailles at Hyères and the street in Paris that bears his name.

At Croix, commissioned by an enlightened textile industrialist, Mallet-Stevens deployed his art down to the smallest details - from the choice of rare building materials to the kitchen fittings, from the layout of the grounds to the design of the furniture - to create a luxurious but never ostentatious avant-garde private residence.

The « Itinéraires » series, designed as a guide for cultural tourism, invites the visitor to discover the highroads and byways of France's national heritage.