Hôtel de Caumont, Art center in Mazarin district, Aix-en-Provence, France.
Hôtel de Caumont is a private mansion at 3 rue Joseph-Cabassol in the Mazarin quarter, built from 1715 to 1742 to designs by Robert de Cotte and Georges Vallon. Its cream-yellow ashlar facade has three storeys plus an attic, a triangular pediment and a segmental arched pediment over the central bay. The deep arched entrance door bears interlaced letters, and a long balcony with ornate iron railing spans above it.
Built between 1715 and 1742 for François Rolland de Réauville, marquis de Cabannes, the mansion was designed by Parisian architect Robert de Cotte with Georges Vallon. The Bruny de La Tour-d'Aigues family acquired it in 1758, and Pauline de Bruny brought it to the Caumonts by marriage. The city bought it in 1964; from 1970 it housed the Darius Milhaud Conservatory, and Culturespaces reopened it as an art centre on 6 May 2015.
The name Caumont comes from Pauline de Bruny, who married the Marquess of Caumont in 1796; a street sign quotes the remark that he took Provence's "most beautiful girl, most beautiful hôtel particulier, most beautiful château and largest fortune". Since 2015 the mansion has housed the Caumont Centre d'Art, with temporary exhibitions devoted to painters such as Chagall and Botero, a reconstructed period interior and a French garden.
The center is easily walkable from central Aix-en-Provence and sits within the old town. There is plenty of room to move through the galleries comfortably, and the layout is accessible for visitors with mobility needs.
The building preserves specialized rooms such as the Chinese salon and the Rinceaux room, each displaying its own decorative style from different periods. These rooms now serve as venues for concerts and art presentations, giving the space an unusual dual role as both exhibition space and performance venue.
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