Villa Arson

Located on the Saint-Barthélemy hill, Villa Arson occupies a vast 2.3-hectare estate overlooking the city of Nice and the Bay of Angels. The architectural ensemble, built in the middle of a Mediterranean garden, brings together the former 18th-century home of the Arson family, now set in modern buildings made of raw concrete and Var pebbles, designed in the late 1960s by architect Michel Marot (1926–2021).

Inaugurated in 1972, Villa Arson was designed as an innovative establishment where teaching, research, experimentation, production and artistic dissemination are combined.

Both a national art school, a national contemporary art center and a hub for international residencies, Villa Arson develops its program each year by inviting numerous visual artists, performers, musicians, critics, graphic designers, exhibition curators, researchers, and heads of French and international institutions to enrich it.

Through its artistic programming and residency policy, the school plays a central role within the network of local, national and international cultural structures: its offering is constantly renewed in order to encourage interactions between its students and players in the French and foreign artistic and intellectual scenes.

Villa Arson is open to the public during exhibition periods:
every day, except Tuesday, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. (from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. in July and August).
Admission is free and without reservation.