Exhibition: see inside the iconic pavilion of a French prefab architect 

A renovated tropical pavilion is on display in the heart of a Spanish vineyard until September 30 as part of an exhibition putting the spotlight on a little-known French architect.

The structure is the centrepiece of Exposition ‘Fillod – Pavillon Tropical Métallique’, taking place at Terra Remota, a vineyard 50 kilometres south of Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales), and features a pavilion built by Ferdinand Fillod (1891-1956).

It was rebuilt from scratch by Clément Cividino, a French architect who has made his career renovating prefab buildings and design furniture from the 1950s to the 1970s.

‘Pavillon Tropical Métallique’ is one of Ferdinand Fillod’s buildings – Fillod being the creator of metal prefabs and barracks built between the 1930s and the 1950s – which has been labelled ‘Architecture contemporaine remarquable’ (remarkable contemporary architecture) since 2016 by the Ministry of Culture.

Few buildings remain across France and Africa, where he worked. “This is the largest plant I have worked on in my career,” Mr Cividino told The Connexion. He spent almost a whole year rebuilding 90 square metres of living space and 30 square metres of terrace. His work puts an end to more than 20 years of dereliction.

“The ‘tropical’ pavilion is one example of Ferdinand Fillod’s prolific creativity,” wrote Sylvie Denante, an employee of the Direction régionale des affaires culturelles (DRAC) in a government note about the pavilion in 2004. DRAC is the French Minister of Culture’s service in charge of historical buildings. It has owned the building since 2004.

“Built entirely with metal materials, it is composed of an arched structure and covered with prefabricated panels. The roof is an independent superstructure, allowing for better air circulation between the floor and the roof,” she added.

Mr Cividino picked up the dismantled pieces from a hangar in 2023.

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It was a prototype in 1947, exhibited at Paris’ exhibition the same year, alongside the pavilion of Jean Prouvé, the most famous French architect of metal structures and who often overshadows Mr Fillod.

It was built in 1951 and installed on the Boulevard Edouard-Herriot in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône) and used as office space for French telecommunications company France Télécom but slowly fell into decay over the decades.

It was conceived as a pedagogical workshop by students of the architecture school of Luminy (ENSAM) and dismantled between November 24 and December 4, 2003. Transported to the university campus, it was reassembled after ENSAM relocated.

What was listed as ‘Patrimoine du XXe’ in 2007 was just a pile of rubble. DRAC sold it to Setec, the French engineering company, which bought it for a symbolic euro in 2013. 

It was transported to Vitrolles and laid there to rust in peace for years after Setec gave up on its initial plan to turn it into office space near its Vitrolles location.

“I went to Vitrolles five or six years ago to visit the Setec building, which was realised by Jean Prouve. I had spotted and taken pictures of a heap of scrap. I remember asking myself where could it come from,” he said.

A scrapheap is, however, sometimes enough for Mr Cividino to trace the origin of the building. He made a name for himself being a kind of chineur, a hunter, of architectural buildings from the 1950s to the 1970s.

At Terra Remota, he exhibited the Chalet Nova, a prefab bungalow from 1972, the Maison Marabout, a house composed of 13 sloping roof and wall panels and the Maison Xasteros, successively in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

Each one had been considered either rare or distinctive; the pavilion Marabout was unique and only three units of the Xasperos house exist.

Mr Cividino embarked on a new challenge.

“What we found in that hangar were piles of scrap. Many pieces could not be saved. The floor was covered in rust and unuseable,” he said.

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That is often the sad ending for most of Mr Fillod’s buildings, not his original intention. 

He patented many houses and hangars which combined metal exteriors and interiors with complex insulation materials to provide affordable housing to poor workers. His most famous are the sloping sidewall structures and ‘all-steel’ houses.

“An industrial success, Fillod’s buildings are a failure when it comes to housing because metal houses remain associated with temporary housing, built hastily, in the French collective psyche,” Laurent Poupard, an engineer and researcher for the heritage service of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, wrote in an article for the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Nancy.

“I was actually surprised by how practical and easy to build it was. The steel’s quality remained excellent despite the rust. Everything slotted together perfectly. It is an extremely functional building,” said Mr Cividino.

The few buildings which remain are often in a shabby condition.

Some are protected from complete demolition by heritage listings. 

That is the case for the ‘hangar Fillod’ on Réunion island which was listed ‘Monument historique’ in 2016 and the five ‘pavillons Fillod’ in Gueugnon (Saône-et-Loire), despite their rusty appearance.

What does the future hold for the ‘Pavillon Tropical Métallique’ once the exhibition ends?

“This was a massive investment of time and money for our company. Hopefully, it will be purchased by an institution, a museum or for an international collection,” said Mr Cividino.