Villa Noailles, Modernist villa and arts centre in Hyères, France

Villa Noailles is a modernist house of stacked rectangular volumes with flat roofs, terraces and large windows, built in reinforced concrete on the slopes of the Castéou hill above Hyères. Its plain white and grey rendered facades, horizontal bands and rooftop railings follow Robert Mallet-Stevens's rationalist design, with local architect Léon David handling extensions up to 1933. A triangular Cubist garden by Gabriel Guevrekian adjoins it.

Charles de Noailles commissioned the villa in 1922 after Mies van der Rohe declined and talks with Le Corbusier failed; Robert Mallet-Stevens presented plans in 1923, and construction ran to 1925, with local architect Léon David extending it until 1933. The Italian Army occupied it in 1940 and turned it into a hospital. Hyères bought it in 1973, and it became an arts centre in 1996.

Since 2003 the villa has been run by Jean-Pierre Blanc as an art centre whose programme centres on architecture, fashion, photography and design, and it holds the label "Contemporary Art Centre of National Interest". Its rooms and terraces host exhibitions and the International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Accessories, founded in Hyères in 1985.

The villa stands at the Clos Saint-Bernard on the slopes of the Castéou hill, about 4 km from the sea, and the site covers 1.5 hectares across several levels and terraces. Access to the upper floors and the gardens involves stairs and uneven ground, so allow time to move between the building and the outdoor spaces.

James Lord, a guest in the mid-1950s, described a large salon with no windows, lit from above by a Cubist skylight covering almost the whole ceiling, which he compared to being aboard a stranded ocean liner. Man Ray filmed Les Mystères du Château de Dé here in 1929.