News and Media

Article By: Paula Wallace
Published: Aug 1, 2011

During my recent visit to SCAD Lacoste, I went on a rugged tour of Maison Basse, a vernacular French farmhouse, or mas, under extreme renovation. Maison Basse is nestled in the valley below the village of Lacoste, a vantage point that provides unparalleled panoramas of the Luberon, extending across fields of lavender and reaching up to Bonnieux, Ménerbes and other quaint, quintessential hill-top villages. Archeological evidence attests that the history of the area stretches back to Paleolithic times, and SCAD historic preservation students and professors have found that the site itself dates to the late Roman period. (Ruins of a Roman wall are still visible along the sides of certain buildings.)

The original and largest section of the farmhouse, built in the 16th century, contains 28 rooms, a barn, a hayloft and a large bread oven around which village people congregated weekly to bake bread. As demand for space grew over the centuries, so did the building, sprawling laterally with several renovations and expansions, additions and adaptations. This early form of "adaptive reuse" is quite common for rural French structures.

Toward the end of the 18th century, the farmhouse was transformed into an aristocratic hoteliere and illicit gambling house by the infamously libertine Marquis de Sade, who had inherited Lacoste's hilltop chateau. But as the French Revolution spilled across France and rioters pillaged many aristocratic homes, the Marquis was forced to sell. Over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the mas passed through several hands and, again, saw many additions, alterations and spatial transformations.

When SCAD acquired Maison Basse in 2002, it was in utter uninhabitable disrepair. The building needed a new life, a new purpose, a renaissance. For the past five years, the mas has undergone massive, massive renovation - without a doubt, it's the largest renovation SCAD Lacoste has undertaken, and truly worth the time and effort. In the fall of 2012, upon completion, Maison Basse will provide ample housing as well as studio and classroom space, allowing us to invite even more SCAD students to learn abroad.

I look forward to the day - and it's not so far off - when SCAD students, living and creating at Maison Basse, revive its spirit. Their art will animate the restored plaster walls, their innovative ideas will reverberate from the rescued vaulted ceilings. SCAD students will compose the modern-day Maison Basse story, and I can't wait to see the next chapter.