The harmoniously asymmetric and organic Villa Benkemoun in Arles, designed by French architect Emile Sala (1913-1998), merged ideas from Le Corbusier’s modernism with a new desire to reconnect with nature, vernacular, diversity and humanism. Commissioned by Pierre and Simone Benkemoun – who had arrived as refugees from Algeria in 1962 following Independence – its curved volumes and circular courtyard of dense Mediterranean planting created a domestic utopia for a joyful and generous family life with their three children from 1974, the year the house completed and they moved in.
