This study traces in Mallet-Stevens' architecture a temporality proper to the photographic image, latent in the space of the moderns of the 1920--1930. To this end, I present both an analyses of Mallet-Stevens' work and a photomontage on the Noailles and Cavrois villas, which combines my photos with historical documents. The montage reveals in these spaces a perceptual quality of the image germane to Merleau-Ponty's notion of flesh. The analysis develops this notion along the lines of 'the grain and the skin'. It reveals in Mallet-Stevens' work the capital importance of his experience, as movie set designer. Indeed, space is conceived by Mallet-Stevens in relationship to a camera frame: therefore the primary medium is the surface (the grain), where the emotional effect of temporality takes place (the skin).

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