Monsieur Dufrenne, Maison construite en bouteilles / House built of bottles

this image as on Google Streetview

The image above, made in 2023, shows a special building located behind a high hedge in Ondreville-sur-Essonne, a small municipality with some 350 inhabitants (2005) in the region Centre Val-de-Loire in France.

What makes this building special is that it was constructed using some 15.000 (empty) champagne bottles, a way of constructing that, as far as known, has not been applied before in the field of art environments in France

The image below, a postcard from 1971, shows what the building looked like in earlier years, when it was used as a cafe-restaurant.

a postcard from 1971

The site as shown in the postcard, situated along a local thoroughfare, exudes a cozy atmosphere, especially thanks to the parasols that have been set up.

To what extent the house itself, constructed using thousands of bottles, has such an atmospheric feel, requires further consideration.

this image and the next two published here iin agreement with Francis David

To attempt an assessment of this, photographs are available, such as those in the image above and below. 

They were taken at the end of the last century by Francis David, who traveled through France in his spare time to capture images of a variety of art environments.

The image above shows that the person who designed the house added some playful elements to the structure, such as the slightly forward-leaning frames of the entrance door and the windows, and also the semi-circular extensions on the right side of the front facade.

And then, in the photo above, one can see that the roof of the house has its own character and has not been made with a design that is typical for roofs.

These specific elements give a somewhat looser character to the bottle house, which  was designed and built by someone named Dufrenne, about whom no further information is available.

In addition to the way of building using bottles, some other creative expressions have also been added to this site.

In this regard, the photo above, also made by Francis David, shows a sculpture of a person, presumably working on the masonry of the house.

And then, there is also a sculpture of a figure situated near a section of the house, as shown in the image above. One might wonder if this is a representation of the builder of the bottle house, as the author of the Tipeek website, mentioned in the documentation, suggests.

Given the limited information publicly available about this art environment, which is also reflected in the articles about the site mentioned in the documentation, it is unclear whether these sculptures were also created by Mr. Dufrenne, but in all likelihood, they were.

This also applies to the nameplate pictured above, which, although difficult to read, states that the building bears the name Villa ma sueur (Villa my sweat).

Although little information exists about the origins and further development of this bottle house, the architectural style and the surrounding sculptural creations give this art environment a unique character.

Documentation

* Entry (undated) with a series of photographs by Francis David on the website Habitants-Paysagistes of the Lille Art Museum

* Article by Sonia Terhzaz, who visited the site in September 2024, on her website Cartographie des Rocamberlus

* Article (October 2024) on the website of Tipeek Photos

Monsieur Dufrenne

Maison Bouteilles

19 Chemin du Moulin de la Groue, 

45233 Ondreville-sur-Essonne, dept Loiret, region Centre, France

can be seen from the road

Google Streetview

Maurice Bouston, Jardin avec une variété de créations colorées / Garden with a variety of colorful creations

pictures are screenprints as on Google Streetview

In the hamlet of la Pouge, located about three kilometers north-east of the municipality of Montbron in France, of which it is part, there is an art environment with all kinds of colorful creations.

The site is located along a public road, the route de l'Arbre, next to a house, on an elongated terrain, which slopes upwards, resulting in a good view from the street of the creations..

Life and works

This art environment was created by Maurice Bouston, who was born in the early 1940s, marrried in 1972 with Josiane, worked all his life as a farmer and retired in the early years of the 21st century.

Most likely inspired by his mother, who herself made all kinds of small works of art, working with simple materials such as clay, from which she made all kinds of animals, Bouston came up with the idea of ​​decorating the area next to the house where he lived.

Thus, in the early years of the 21st century, he began to decorate his garden, probably after he retired and undoubtedly also inspired by the Olympic Games that took place in 2002, to which he dedicated a creation with festive flags, one of his first decotaive projects.

Maurice Bouston, who embodies both the resilience and passion of an artist, first worked with simple, mostly recycled material.

For example, he managed to transform a number of disused mannequins into a group of colorful characters.

He enjoys sporting activities, such as the Olympic Games, but also other tournaments. When a rugby world cup was in full swing, he created a group of rugby players and their balls.

The images above and below show that Bouston as time went on, began making larger creations.

For example, he wanted to imitate the Tower of Pisa using cement, but the structure became so crooked that he feared it would actually fall over. With the help of extra cement and cart wheels, an upright tower, known as the Tower of Liberty, now adorns the art environment

Another large element can be seen at the far right end of the garden, a cylindrical, tapered structure, known as the anti-Putin cannon.

Documentation
* Article (June 2025) on the website Tipeek Photos, with a series of beautiful, informative photos

* Article (December 2022) on regional journal Charante Libre (10% of the actual text)

Video

*Video (January 2025, YouTube, 3"03') by regional newspaper Charente Libre

Maurice Bouston

Garden with a variety of colorful creations 

8 Route de l’Arbre

La Pouge, Montbron, dept Charente, region Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France

site can be seen from the road

Google Streetview (2022)

Anna Jensen, Museum på campingplassen / Museum at the campsite

unless otherwise stated, images are courtesy of Sophie Lepetit

About three kilometers north of the small town of Brønnøysund with some 5,000 inhabitants, located along the coast in central Norway, there is a camping site of which the wooden structure pictured above is part. 

The images above and below of the interior of this small wooden building show that it is decorated in a very special way..

Life and works

This decorative feast is the work of Anne Jensen, who is the owner of the campsite.

She was born in 1944 and lived for decades in the farmhouse that was situated on the area along the Mosheim road and now houses the campsite.

During a trip she made in the early 1990s, she got the idea of ​​exploiting the area around the farm as a campsite. 

She realized that plan in 1994, initially with a limited number of pitches and facilities, but gradually growing into a full-fledged campsite with good facilities, including the decorated wooden building, which is referred to as Museum,

It is a museum with all kinds of old things, which to a large extent evoke memories of the past.

It started with Anna Jensen making sure that all kinds of things that were used on the farm, such as tools and utensils, were preserved.

But she had also already built up a collection of all kinds of other things such as iron stuff in all shapes and sizes, stately furniture, animal figures, gnomes, coffee pots, jugs, plates and so on.

These are objects that occur in individual pieces in many households, but what is special about the Museum is the overwhelming impression that the large size and variety of the collection as a whole makes.

Anna Jensen has had great pleasure in assembling the extensive collection of “stuff” and she often knows its origins.

Visitors to the Museum sometimes indicate that they would like to buy a part of the collection, but Anna Jensen is not willing in this regard, the collection must remain a unity

above image as on the webiste  of the camping

The campsite's website also contains some images of sculptures that adorn the site, as can be seen in the image above. It does not mention who made these sculptures. Of course, the first thought that comes to mind is that these sculptures are also creations of Anna Jensen.

Documentation

* Website Brønnøy Kommune  

* Website Mosheim Camping

* Entry on Tripadvisor

Anna Jensen

Museum at the camping

Mosheim 43 

8908 Brønnøysund, Nordland County, Norway

visitors welcome

Google Streetview

Pascual Zapater Barrús, Jardín con dos torres decoradas / Garden with two decorated towers

this image as on Google Sreetview
other images courtesy of Sophie Lepetit

In Piera, a municipality of around 15,000 inhabitants, located in the interior of Catalonia, Spain, some 50 km west of Barcelona, ​​one can come across the scene depicted above, a garden decorated with two towers rising high amidst some equally high trees.

These two towers are part of an art environment created by Pascual Zapater Barrús.

Life and works

Born in 1938 in a small village in the Spanish region of Aragon, Pascual became a shepherd after primary school. At the age of 21 he was called up for military service and after that he did not return to his native village, but went to live in Barcelona in the region of Catalonia.

There he first worked in construction and then started his own building company with one of his brothers, who was a plumber. This company did well, but unfortunately his brother died at a young age.

In 1975, at the age of 37, he married and the family would have three boys and a girl. Ten years later, around 1985, he bought a large house, or rather an estate, in Piera. 

Pascual Zapater Barrús continued to work in Barcelona, ​​but went to Piera on weekends to beautify his estate.

In his mid-fifties, in 1992, using all sorts of leftover materials available through his construction company, he began to build the first beautifully decorated tower, which would be 9.5 meters high. 

This tower was called Naturaleza, a reference to nature.

Because he only worked on weekends, it would take him nine years to complete this project.

When Pascual Zapater turned 65, he retired. He sold his company and settled with his family permanently in Piera.

Now he could devote much more time to the further development of the art environment and in 2003 he began the construction of his second tower, 10 meter high and called Templo de los Inmortales (Temple of the Immortals).

The designation "immortals" refers to the highlights of Spanish intellectual and cultural life throughout the centuries,

Due to their imposing size, the two towers dominate this art environment. 

But the site also includes many other creations, which are largely characterized by the decorations with mosaic, in Spain called trencadis. as in he entirely black and white tinted sculpture of the lady above, but also in the decorative plaques below, which decorated walls near the garden.

The art environment also includes smaller decorated creations, as seen in the image below. 

The entrance to the house is also decorated with a row of similar small-scale creations.

There are also two miniature structures that are copies of buildings in Zapater's birthplace, but the most impressive are the decorative elements applied to the two defining towers, as can be seen once more in the image below.

\

 

Pascual Zapater Barrús is now in his late eighties and he is no longer working on the expansion of the art environment. However, he is proud of what he has achieved and is happy to tell visitors more about it,

Documentation

* Artcle by Jo Farb Hernández on SPACES Archive

* Entry, with a variety of images on the weblog of Sophie Lepetit

* Article (March 2024) in Spnnish newaspaper La Vanguardia

* Article (September 2022) on weblog Estima da Terra

* Article (undated) by Serflac on website Atlas Obscura

Video

* Video (2018, YouTube, 9'20") by Arnau Salvado

note

I would like to note that biographical information is taken from the article by Jo Farb Hernández, the only source that has this information

Pascal Zapater Barrús

Garden with two decorated towers 

36 Carrer Circumval·lacio   , 

08784 Piera, Catalunya, 08784, Spain

towers can be seen from the street

Google Streetview

Guy Chalvignac, Jardin décoré de châteaux miniatures / Garden decorated with miniature castles

front of the house and wall along the garden
in 2021 as on Google Streetview

The house pictured above is located in Chaillevette. a commune with some 1600 inhabitants in south-west France, situated on the left bank of the Seudre river in an area with many salt marshes, where oysters are cultivated and traded via the local, picturesque harbour along the Seudre river.

at the right: Château de Beauregard 
this photo (2024) and the next three (2025) \
published here in agremeent with Georges Fontaine

Life and works

The front of the house is provided with a modestly sized art environment, predominantly presenting miniature castles, created by Guy Chalvignac.

Born in 1929 or 1930 in the French area Périgord, Guy Chalvignac settled in the Charente-Maritime department in the early 1950s, first in the Royan area and then in Chaillevette.

He married and had descendants, was a plasterer by trade and retired in 1988.

Château des Milandes

As a child, Chalvignac was already active in doing odd jobs and making all kinds of things.

For example, at a young age he made all kinds of windmills and he also put together a truck, which he could pull with a rope.

He also enjoyed painting, an activity he would pursue throughout his life, also when he was creating the art environment in the front yard. 

That yard has a concrete wall on the right side (seen from the street), which is still unpainted on Google Streetview in March 2021, but in the video below, made in 2024, is provided with colorfully painted scenes

left: Château le Val

From the images of the front garden on Google Streetview, it appears also that the decoration of the front garden with miniature castles must have started after 2013.

This means that Calvignac undertook creatng the ccllection of miniature castles at a later age, when he was already in his eighties.

Working with concrete, he decorated the front garden of his house mainly with replicas in miniature of a variety of French castles. He was a meticulous worker who strove to reproduce architecture of the castles as faithfully as possible

His first project was a replica of the Château de Hautefort, located in the Dordogne. 

Another miniature depicts a castle that, located near where Chalvignac lived was called the Château de Beauregard and is shown on the far right in the second image from the top. 

It was known as the “castle with the six towers” ​​and dominated all the buildings in the area. Legend has it that it was once a refuge for pirates who attacked ships, but the castle is now destroyed.

not identified

Other miniatures of castles created by Chalvignac are the Château de Milandes, the Château de Commarque, both located in the Dordogne, and the Château de Val in de Haute Corrèze.

To conclude this overview, below is an image of the art environment made by Michel Leroux, as it looked in 2019. 

The building in the foreground is Walt Disney's Cinderella Castle, an amusement park in the shape of a castle, located east of Paris.

this image (2019) courtesy of Michel Leroux

In the interior of Chalvignac's house there are also creations he made, in particular a collection of about fifteen models of sailing ships, such as Le Protecteur with 500 pulleys and 64 guns, a ship of the French Navy, designed in 1740 to face the English Navy.

Documentation

* Entry (2022) on the website of Patrimoine et Inventaire de Nouvelle-Aquitaine

* Article (May 2025) in regional newspaper Le Littoral (10% of the text, the full text is copied on Facebook)

Video

* Reel (December 2024) by Karine Bellet, granddaughter of Guy Chalvignac, on Facebook

Guy Chalvignac

Garden decorated with miniature castles

9 rue de la Mairie

17890 Chaillevette, dept Charente-Maritime, region Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France

can be seen from the street

Google Streetview

Robuste Odin & Erolf Totort, La Robustinie. Jardin sauvage et d'art / Wlld and artistic garden

all pictures courtesy of Sophie Lepetit
as on Facebook

La Robustinie is a rather special garden in the commune of Pont Audemer in France, which is cared for and includes creations by sculptor and visual artist Robuste Odin and engraver and painter Erolf Totort. 

Both are artists by profession, but they act from their own perspective and way of working, independent of prevailing trends in the art world, an approach similar to that of Chomo in France and Karl Junker in Germany.

The art environment is situated near a building, as shown in the image above. 

This building was in the past a modest farm, which guarded the access to a former tannery, a company that used to dump its waste in a pond in the water-rich area located in the western part of the city of Pont Audemer.

This form of industry has now disappeared and has been replaced by an area with many houses near a variety of lakes and ponds.

In the early years of the 21st century the former farm was taken into use by Robuste Odin, who set up a studio in one of the rooms in the interior.

From the beginning, the development of the terrain near the former farm also had his attention. He was assisted in this by the female engraver and painter Erolf Totort, who lived in Paris.

Robuste Odin was born in Paris in 1964, and studied at the University of Rouen in Normandy. If he studied at an art academy is unclear, but anyhow he developed into a sculptor and metalworker, who as he himself once said "makes strange things with strange things". 

Using all kinds of leftover material from the metal industry, he makes garden furniture for sale and also colorful sculptures, which are placed in the terrain near the house to be further shaped by nature.

Over the years, this area has grown into an extensive, colorful art environment.

In this development of the area near hus house Robuste Odin was assisted by Erolf Totort. who lives in Paris and travels regularly to Pont Audemer.

Born in Paris, Erolf Totort is a pure Parisienne, a child of the left bank of the Seine, an activist who creates decorative work as an engraver, with a passion for prehistory. She studied at the École nationale supérieure des arts d;ecoratives and art science at the Université Paris VIII.

Robuste and Erolf have invested a lot of time and energy in the design of the art environment near the former farm. 

They focus not only on enriching the site with sculptures, but also pay a lot of attention to sowing and maintaining all kinds of plants that have a beautiful bloom, and also plants that have medicinal properties.

They themselves say that they cannot be surpassed when it comes to giving names to plants that itch or even make you sick.

Over the past twenty years, La Robustinie has grown into an atypical sculpture park that is popular with walkers, school classes, children's classes and lovers of water features in the nearby landscape.

Open days where visitors are welcome  are regularly organised.

Documentation

* Article (May 2025) in French newspaper l'Éveil, focussing on the open days in June 2025

* Publication (May 2025) entitled Fête de la Nature, with a series of images of the art environment

* A series of photos by Sophie Lepetit on Facebook.

Robuste Odin & Erolf Totort

La Robustinie

Chemin de Haut-Ëtui

27500 Pont Audemer, dept Eure, region Normandy, France

can be visited during open days 

Joan Diaz, Casa Pratginestós / Pratginestós House.

all images (2014) by Marcel Albet, from his weblog, 
licensed under Creative Commons 3.0

The house pictured above, with its exterior walls full of decorations, is located in Llinars del Vallès, a municipality with some 9800 inhabitants (2018) in the province of Barcelona, ​​​​Spain, about forty kilometers north-east of the city of Barcelona. 

The house was designed by Joan Diaz, who moved in with his wife and two children, and in 1990 began a decorating project that he would continue for many years.

 

Life and works

Joan Diaz was born in 1941 in the French town of Montauban, at a time when his parents lived there as migrants, having fled from Spain because of the civil war. 

When the war officially ended in 1939, the family soon after his birth returned to Spain and so young Joan would grow up there.

From an early age Joan was attracted to art, he enjoyed painting and drawing, played the violin and the piano, sang in his school choir and played the organ in the local church at weddings.

However, he chose to study technical architecture and architectural drawing, but did not complete it, because he was able to get a job with the municipality of Granollers, which he would hold for 17 years, while at the same time he was working with his father in the family business of building grain silos.

In 1965, at the age of 24, he bought a plot of land in the municipality of Llinars del Vallès, which, like Granollers, was located northwest of Barcelona.

Joan Diaz had acquired sufficient knowledge during his studies in architecture to make the drawings of the design of his future house himself.

The top image in this post shows partly what he had in mind for the building to arise on the corner of three streets.

The front of the house with the main entrance is along the Carrer Carvantes. 

The right side of the house has a slightly receding side aisle, that faces the Carrar Jacint Verdagner and is separated from the street corner by a high wall, provided with a second entrance.

The left side of the house, not visible on the image on top of this post,  is decorated with a low transparent fence that runs from the main entrance to the second side street, the Passage Cervantes.

Behind this fence is an open area, separated from the Passage Cervantes by a stone wall as high as the iron fence, which continues up to the side wall of a neighboring house.

In 1969 the house was ready and Joan Díaz and Asunción Pantanigrós, whom he had married in the meantime, could move in there.

Although he undoubtedly thought about decorating the house, he was too busy in the first decades of his marriage to actually start doing so. The couple had two daughters and their upbringing required a lot of attention, as did the work he did for his father in addition to his own job at the municipality of Granollers

It was not until the end of the 1980s, when he was approaching the age of fifty, that he started taking steps in the direction of creating decorations by undertaking a pilot project. 

This worked out so well that he actually started decorating his house in the early 1990s, a project he continued at least until 2019, when he was approaching the age of eighty.

Joan Diaz created a series of increasingly complex and often large mosaic paintings on both the inside and outside of his house, an imaginative work with many trencadis and wrought iron elements, full of references to the landscapes of the region and to rural and traditional Catalan life.

His wife supported him in his creative activities and, not without reason, the neighbours and the municipality were also positive about it.

The website Artworks from Casa Pratginestós (see Documentation) provides an illustrated overview of what he created in the period 1990=2019.

Documentation

* Weblog (undated) Obras de Arte de Casa Pratginestós (Artworks from Casa Pratginestós) with 190 photos of the site selected by subject and yearof creation. 

* Article (2016) by Jo Farb Hernámdez on website SPACES Archive

* Article (2024) on website Rondaller

* Entry (2024) with a series of photos on the weblog of Marcel Albet

* Entry on the website of Tripadvisor wirh some 30 photos

Joan Diaz, 

Casa Pratginestós  .

Carrer Cervantes, 18, 

08450 Llinars del Vallès, dept Barcelona, region Catalonia, Spain

decorations can be seen from the street
interior is in general not open to visitors
Google Streetview: right side,of the property, left side of the property