The Architectural Centre of Aix-en-Provence, establishment of the Vasarely Foundation, new Museum of France
The 121st museum in France in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region houses the collections of Victor Vasarely, artist and designer of the Centre architectonique. DRAC PACA has supported the foundation since 2009.
Obtaining the Musée de France designation is a fair recognition of Vasarely’s place in the history of art and the commitment of his heirs to defend the artist’s project. It symbolically shows that the years 2019-2020 are a turning point in the Foundation’s history. It confirms the Foundation’s return to the cultural scene and opens up new prospects for partnerships in France and abroad.
A request for naming
The evolution of the Foundation towards the status of «museum of France» is a step envisaged by the DRAC PACA, since the beginning of the Foundation’s recovery in 2009. It is in this line that the Museums Service, together with the advisors who have since succeeded each other, supports and accompanies the activities of the Foundation (inventory, proofing, digitization of funds, mediation) parallel to the process led by the Regional Conservation of Historical Monuments.
As expressed in the scientific and cultural project, the request for the French museum designation in 2020 for the Architectural Centre of Aix-en-Provence is part of a dynamic (that of the restoration of the building-work, the reconstitution of the collections, the recovery of the Vasarely Foundation) and responds to a double desire: respect the founders' project by having the means to implement it and protect the collection by making it inalienable, imprescriptible and non-transferable.
The collection requesting the name museum of France concerns only the inalienable works (truncated of a part) initially given to the Architectural Centre and which represent the culmination of the artistic approach of Victor Vasarely, with 385 entries broken down as follows:
- 315 studies displays,
- 28 miscellaneous studies,
- 6 large works 2m x 2m,
- 36 miscellaneous elements (models, multiples, objects, posters, etc.).
Presentation of the Vasarely Foundation
Győző Vásárhelyi, known as Victor Vasarely (b at Pécs, Hungary 9 Apr 1906; d at Paris 15 Mar 1997), a student at the Mühely in Budapest in the 1920s, moved to Paris in the 1930s, created the bulk of his work in France. Naturalized French in 1961, he is recognized as the father of optical art (Op art). After having invented a singular plastic language that becomes the basis of his works, he wants to give «to see» to the greatest number his theory of the plastic alphabet on various supports and prove the utility of art for all in the continuity of the ideas of the Bauhaus.
In 1966, he decided to create, with his wife Claire Vasarely, a private non-profit foundation that bears his name, on his own money: the Vasarely Foundation.
This first monograph foundation is a unique example where an artist is his own patron. Originally, it is composed of two complementary and distinct parts: the didactic museum installed in the castle of Gordes-Vaucluse (which it restores) and the Architectural Centre of Aix-en-Provence (which it designs and has built). The first, inaugurated on June 5, 1970, presents the artistic journey of the artist and his painted work, the second inaugurated on February 14, 1976, is intended to promote his architectural work and to realize the «Cité polychrome du bonheur»; the first is the demonstration, the second the conclusion. This foundation was recognized of public utility by decree in the Council of State on September 27, 1971.
After arousing a strong interest, linked to the place of the works of Victor Vasarely in the artistic production of the 1970s, the Foundation experienced a period of turmoil in the 1990s-2000, marred by family conflicts and problems within its own institutions.
However, since 2009, these difficulties which may have caused fear for the future and the survival of the Foundation have been overcome, both because of successive judgments in favour of the Foundation and thanks to the efforts of the directors, of all the local authorities (Region, Department, City of Aix-en-Provence), of the State and the tenacity and commitment of its president, Pierre Vasarely, the only grandson and universal legatee of Victor Vasarely .
Today, thanks to a virtuous management ensuring financial balance and numerous efforts to rebuild a collection damaged, the Vasarely Foundation has managed to overcome these uncertainties and build a major project.
The architectural centre of Aix-en-Provence: a building-work, the first element of the collection
The Architectural Centre of Aix-en-Provence is housed in a building characteristic of the work of Victor Vasarely who is the designer. The culmination of nearly sixty years of plastic research, it also bears the mark of innovation and architecture of the 1970s.
Victor Vasarely wrote that, in order to set up a place for the dissemination of his art, he was looking for a place where it would be possible to have near references to the past. After having long hesitated between Gordes (where he had already installed his didactic museum), Cabrières d'Avignon, the pinewoods of the university pole of Marseille-Luminy and other places, his choice is fixed on Aix-en-Provence, then in full expansion and including the mayor, Félix Ciccolini, proposes to give him the land necessary for the realization of his project.
Victor Vasarely accepted the proposal from the municipality of Aix-en-Provence, which, after deliberation on 30 March 1973 and 9 July 1974, transferred to the Foundation the land on which it built its buildings (nearly 5,000 m² of surface) surrounded by a three-hectare park. The area chosen is that of Jas de Bouffan where Cezanne lived and painted and where a Concerted Development Zone is developing. The location makes sense: reference to the past, field of experimentation to realize a social utopia, accessibility.
The ensemble composed of a series of seven hexagons inscribed in a rectangle 87 metres long by 40 metres wide was intended by Victor Vasarely as a manifesto of the integration of the work of art in architecture, both on the outside and inside.
The interior tour, originally in 1976, offers a summary of Victor Vasarely’s work in the field of optical art, through 44 monumental works, the Monumental integrations, which are all experiments in the fields of materials and techniques. The rest is made up of a conference room–auditorium, a library, reserves. Upstairs, Vasarely had set up offices and workshops for new research and integration. The construction work of the Foundation took place in 1974 for the building and in 1975 for the Monumental integrationsThe architects of the historical monuments Jean Sonnier and Dominique Ronsseray are responsible for the project.
The role of state services: the importance of heritage protection
The Historical Monuments Service
In 2003, the inclusion of the building in the additional inventory of historical monuments and the launch of restoration works, funded by the State (Ministry of Culture) the City of Aix-en-Provence and the Region have made it possible to save in extremis the built work as well as the Monumental integrations. In 2009, the will of Frédéric Mitterrand, then Minister of Culture and Communication, and the involvement of the services of the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (Regional conservation of historical monuments in a first time, museum service afterwards) are to be noted. Embedded in the Museums in Regions Plan 2011-2013, the building-work and the park are unanimously classified as historic monuments on November 25, 2013, confirming the exceptional historical and artistic interest of the Vasarely Foundation’s architectural ensemble.
In 2011 the program of restoration of the closed and covered is set up with in particular the restoration of skylights and panels works of anodized aluminum facade. The works of Alvéoles 4 closely related to the panels of facades are also restored in 2017. In 2019, the restoration work of the building and the park is completed, allowing a program of restoration of works including Monumental integrations, the Zolnay sculpture, as well as all the mechanized displays.
The aid for the restoration of the Vasarely Foundation paid by the regional conservation of historical monuments of the DRAC PACA from 2011 to 2020 amounts to €2,141,480.
The Museums Service
In 2020, the transmission of a finalized scientific and cultural project (PSC) from the Foundation to the DRAC PACA launches the momentum for the application for designation. Written with several hands, its elaboration was accompanied for several years by the advisors for the museums of the DRAC PACA. The PSC of the foundation is a 105-page document organized in two parts: inventory and project. It is accompanied by 352 pages of appendices. All the sections expected by a CSP are addressed.
For years, the museum service has been supporting the Foundation’s activities with a view to this transition to the status of a museum in France (inventory, proofing, digitization of funds, development of reserves, mediation). Grants for the Foundation’s operations from the DRAC PACA Museums Service from 2012 to 2020 amount to €337,500.
Grants for museums | 2012 to 2020 |
Heritage Program | €213,000 |
Knowledge Transfer Program | €121,500 |
PNV National Program of Digitization and Promotion of cultural content (in 2020 only) | €3,000 |
TOTAL | €337,500 |
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