Villa Costa
MonumentHidden Treasure
Villa Costa, located in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône), is a medieval landmark built in the Middle Ages. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Period
- Medieval (11th-15th century)
- Location
- Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 43.2777, 5.3709
- Mérimée Reference
- PA13000077
A rocaille gem of 19th-century Marseille, the Villa Costa dazzles with its façades entirely covered in sculpted polychrome cement, an intact masterpiece by the famous rocaille artists, the Gagliardones.
History
Nestling in the urban fabric of Marseilles, Villa Costa is one of those 19th-century bourgeois homes that come as a complete surprise to visitors: behind a discreet street façade lies a decorative ensemble of staggering richness, where cement is transformed into lace, a fantastic grotto, a living tableau. Here, walls are not just load-bearing structures - they are works of art in their own right. What fundamentally distinguishes Villa Costa from its contemporaries in Marseille is the exceptional preservation of its original polychromy. Where so many other ornate residences have seen their colours fade under the onslaught of time and renovation, the original shades - ochres, reds, greens, off-whites - remain remarkably vibrant on the garden facades. You can still see the original aesthetic intention, the overall vision that the Costa couple wanted to give to their prestigious residence. The experience of the Villa Costa is above all that of discovering an art form that is both popular and learned: rocaille, or rockwork, is a demanding technique that straddles the border between architecture, sculpture and the decorative arts. The Gagliardones, a family of rock-cutters of Italian origin renowned throughout the region, have deployed all their know-how here, covering surfaces with shells, stones and mortar worked in relief, creating compositions that evoke both wild nature and the most sophisticated ornamental caprice. The garden, which once formed an integral part of the decorative ensemble, now exists only in a residual state. Nevertheless, it gives a glimpse of what it was like: a green space punctuated by artificial grottoes, ornate fountains and trellises covered in sculpted cement, in the great tradition of Marseille's holiday gardens of the Second Empire and Third Republic. What has been preserved of the façades allows us to imagine the fascinating dialogue that was established between the worked mineral and the exuberant vegetation. Listed as a Historic Monument in 2015, Villa Costa today represents an irreplaceable testimony to the art of bourgeois living in Marseille during the Belle Époque, and even more so to a craft tradition - rocaillage - that has long been underestimated by official art history. Its exceptionally well-preserved documentation also makes it a valuable object of study for heritage historians and specialist restorers.
Architecture
Villa Costa belongs to the typology of Marseille mansions from the second half of the 19th century: a compact volume, with two or three storeys, organised around an axis of symmetry, opening onto a private garden via its side and rear façades. It is precisely on these garden facades that the architectural and ornamental interest of the building is concentrated. They are entirely covered with a décor of rock cement, a technique in which the base plaster is used as a support for relief compositions incorporating stones, shells, shards and textured mortar, creating a surface of striking tactile and visual richness. The major technical feature of Villa Costa is the preservation of its original polychromy. The Gagliardone stonemasons worked not only on the texture but also on the colour of their decor, using naturally coloured materials and whitewashes to create an elaborate chromatic programme. Warm tones - yellow and red ochres, earthy browns - alternate with lighter areas and accents of bright colours, giving the whole a luminous vibrancy characteristic of the Mediterranean decorative arts of the Belle Époque. The motifs on the façades combine naturalistic references (branches, foliage, shells) with simulated architectural elements (window frames, cornices, trompe-l'œil pilasters), creating a continuity between the building itself and the garden opposite. This dissolution of the boundary between architecture and nature, between interior and exterior, is one of the most remarkable and modern features of the Gagliardones' work at Villa Costa.
Related Figures
Les époux Costa — commanditaires de la villa en 1884, membres de la bourgeoisie marseillaise ayant initié ce programme décoratif exceptionnelLa famille Gagliardone — rocailleurs d'origine piémontaise, artisans réputés dans toute la région marseillaise, maîtres d'œuvre du décor en ciment polychromeAnonymes maîtres-maçons et artisans locaux — collaborateurs des Gagliardone dans la réalisation du chantier de rocaillage
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Villa Costa located?
Villa Costa is located in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône department, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, France.
When was Villa Costa built?
Villa Costa dates back to a period built in the Middle Ages (11th-15th century).
Is Villa Costa open to visitors?
Villa Costa is currently closed to visitors.