Prouvé's 1958 Prefab House Moves From Alsace to the Mediterranean

Jean and Claude Prouvé's 1958 prefabricated house has been rebuilt 700 kilometers south of where it stood for more than sixty years, and you can now sleep in it. Maison Prouvé 58, rescued from demolition in the Alsatian village of Epfig, reopened near Saint-Paul-de-Vence in southern France through the hospitality platform Les Maisons CAB.

The low, L-shaped residence now sits among pine and olive trees, its ribbed aluminum facade and long stretches of glazing facing the Mediterranean instead of the hills of northeastern France. Not a bad trade.

How did the house escape demolition?

The building was commissioned in 1958 by Édouard Degott, a local notary in Epfig, and stood on its original site for over six decades, accumulating alterations along the way. When the municipality acquired the property for redevelopment, plans for a new residential care facility put the house on the clock.

Belgian art collector Hubert Bonnet bought the structure in 2021. Dismantling followed in 2022, with the components trucked to Nancy for restoration before reassembly in Provence. The house has been taken apart and built again, which is precisely what Jean Prouvé's construction system was designed to allow.

What do the archives reveal about its construction?

The original commission began with Jean Prouvé, whose experiments with industrialized building had already produced a series of lightweight, demountable structures. Working in Paris, he handed the project to his son Claude, who drew the plans and oversaw the site. The house was completed in 1959, though the 1958 date stuck in its name.

Research from the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Nancy documents a rocky build. Delayed deliveries of facade panels and glazing slowed work, and Claude Prouvé eventually assembled window frames himself — a useful reminder that factory-made architecture had teething problems too.

The construction follows Jean Prouvé's established principles:

• Prefabricated sandwich panels with an insulating core beneath ribbed aluminum surfaces
• Broad glazing set behind slender metal columns along the garden facade
• Laminated wood roof elements, finished in folded aluminum

What's inside?

The house spans roughly 115 square meters. A central corridor splits the plan: two bedrooms and a playroom occupy the western side around a bathroom, while the kitchen and living areas gather around a fireplace to the east. Wood warms the metal envelope, and generous windows pull the garden — and now the Mediterranean view — deep into the compact interior.

The furnishings read like a modernist inventory: pieces by Jean Prouvé and Charlotte Perriand, plus work by Pierre Jeanneret and Le Corbusier. A Prouvé desk and daybed share the rooms with Perriand's Nuage shelving. All of it belongs to Bonnet's 20th-century design collection, though here the objects return to their intended job as furniture in a home rather than inventory in a vault.

A second life next to a Provençal farmhouse

Maison Prouvé 58 now anchors a nearly 4,000-square-meter estate alongside Le Clos du Père François, a stone farmhouse from around 1850, also restored, with interiors furnished primarily by Jean-Michel Wilmotte and contemporary artworks throughout. The farmhouse's heavy stone against the Prouvés' thin industrial envelope is a contrast you could teach from.

Fondation CAB inaugurated both properties in October 2026. The house sleeps four across two bedrooms and rents together with the adjoining farmhouse; a swimming pool and a large wall painting by Swiss artist Claudia Comte complete the grounds. More than six decades after its first assembly in Alsace, the structure has found a new purpose — one its prefab bones were arguably built for all along.

Project details: Maison Prouvé 58, formerly Maison Degott. Design: Claude Prouvé, working with Jean Prouvé's construction system. Original completion: 1959. Original location: Epfig, Alsace; current location: Saint-Paul-de-Vence. Area: 115 square meters. Reopening: October 2026. Owner/collection: Hubert Bonnet, Fondation CAB. Hospitality operator: Les Maisons CAB. Photography: © Micha Pycke.