Many artists and architects fell for the charm of these buildings from the 1950s before art from the Brussels-based Fondation CAB collection was exhibited in them. There are also four guest rooms and the “6 x 6” cottage by Jean Prouvé, which can be booked between spring and fall. The exhibition spaces, bookshop and guest rooms were carefully renovated by Parisian architect and designer Charles Zana in 2021.
No, Teddy Roosevelt does not come to life, nor does Amelia Earhart. Instead, the capuchin monkey Dexter is not up to any mischief, and the tyrannosaurus Rexy is not screaming for a bone to retrieve like in the movie “Night at the Museum”. After all, Saint-Paul-de-Vence is not Hollywood and the Fondation CAB is not the American Museum of Natural History. Nevertheless, a night at the museum on the Côte d’Azur is magical.
The collection rooms are closed in the evening. But the stone circle “Along the Way” by Richard Long belongs to the overnight guests alone. And the museum residents eat their breakfast exclusively before the museum visitors in the SOL café-restaurant under Sol LeWitt’s “Wall Structure” at pentagonal tables – designed by Charlotte Perriand for the Les Arcs winter sports resort. You don’t have to become a museum night watchman like Ben Stiller in the film; the four guest rooms are easy to book online via the museum website.
The Fondation and Café – Restaurant SOL are closed between November and February and offer an artist a place to live and work. The four guest rooms can be booked all year round from 200 euros per night; a night in the “Maison Démontable 6 x 6” costs 600 euros.
In 2021, Belgian art collector Hubert Bonnet moved some of his exhibits from the Fondation CAB in Brussels, founded in 2012, to Saint-Paul-de-Vence in the south of France. He had commissioned Charles Zana to renovate the elegant building complex from the 1950s. Bonnet, who primarily collects and exhibits minimalist and constructivist art from the 20th and 21st centuries, was not the first to fall under the spell of this location: Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Joan Miró and Alexander Calder immortalized themselves in the Hotel La Colombe d’Or in the 1920s.
Marc Chagall has been buried in the small cemetery since March 1985. In addition, the gallery owners Aimé and Marguerite Maeght opened their Fondation in the magnificent rooms of Josep Lluís Sert at the same location in 1964, expanded last year by the Parisian architect Silvio d’Ascia.
The rooms are between 24 and 40 square meters in size; two of them open onto terraces, all are furnished with art and furniture by Alvar Aalto, Paolo Buffa, Poul Kjaerholm, Max Ingrand or Hans J. Wegner. Sitting on them, putting them in, putting them away and touching them is not only allowed, but necessary – how else can you fit your wardrobe into the room divider for the “Maison du Brésil”, designed by Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand in 1959? Where better to relax than on the “Scissor Chair” by Pierre Jeanneret or on a Fritz Hansen sofa from 1938?
The Fondation CAB has also been expanded: the garden is home to Jean Prouvé’s famous “Maison Démontable 6 x 6”, which the designer and blacksmith developed in 1944 as a temporary refuge for the homeless. Once divided into three rooms, the wooden house with its original furnishings is now a spacious sleeping and living area and can be booked in summer. Electricity and air conditioning have now been installed. The bathroom is accessed through the garden. At 600 euros, the stay is not cheap. But a night in this wonderful museum is priceless anyway.
Click here to book! Have a nice vacation, Baumeister.
This is an article from the March 2025 issue of Baumeister. You can find out more here.
