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PDF.Js Viewer E.1027 Layered Atmospheres: Color, Materials, Fitted and Loose Furniture Seminar 1 The University of Texas at Austin Wilfried Wang ! T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F T E X A S A T A U S T I N , S C H O O L O F A R C H I T E C T U R E B A T T L E H A L L , R O O M 1 1 7 , A U S T I N , T E X A S 7 8 7 1 2 - 0 2 2 2 E . 1 0 2 7 L A Y E R E D A T M O S P H E R E S : C O L O R , M A T E R I A L S , F I T T E D A N D L O O S E F U R N I T U R E S E M I N A R A R C 3 8 6 M , A R C 3 5 0 R I N S T R U C T O R W I L F R I E D W A N G O ‘ N E I L F O R D C E N T E N N I A L C H A I R I N A R C H I T E C T U R E T E L 5 1 2 . 2 3 2 . 9 3 1 2 E - M [email protected] O F F I C E H O U R S A S A G R E E D E.1027, View of south façade after 2008 renovation (photo Manuel Bougot) E.1027 Layered Atmospheres: Color, Materials, Fitted and Loose Furniture Seminar 2 The University of Texas at Austin Wilfried Wang ! E.1027, View of Master Bedroom study area in its original state 1929, (photo: Eileen Gray 1929) E.1027 Layered Atmospheres: Color, Materials, Fitted and Loose Furniture Seminar 3 The University of Texas at Austin Wilfried Wang ! E.1027, Roquebrune-Cap Martin, View of Master Bedroom, sleeping area, partial reconstruction by Robert Rebutato 2012, (photo WW 2015) E.1027 Layered Atmospheres: Color, Materials, Fitted and Loose Furniture Seminar 4 The University of Texas at Austin Wilfried Wang ! Eileen Gray, E.1027, Master Bedroom, Ink on Paper, National Museum of Ireland, Accession no. NMIEG 2003-007 E.1027 Layered Atmospheres: Color, Materials, Fitted and Loose Furniture Seminar 5 The University of Texas at Austin Wilfried Wang ! Eileen Gray, E.1027, Plan of upper ground floor, from L'Architecture Vivante: E.1027 Maison en Bord de Mer, Paris 1929 E.1027 Layered Atmospheres: Color, Materials, Fitted and Loose Furniture Seminar 6 The University of Texas at Austin Wilfried Wang ! Eileen Gray, E.1027, Master Bedroom, from L'Architecture Vivante: E.1027 Maison en Bord de Mer, Paris 1929 E.1027 Layered Atmospheres: Color, Materials, Fitted and Loose Furniture Seminar 7 The University of Texas at Austin Wilfried Wang ! C O U R S E D E S C R I P T I O N A N D S Y L L A B U S “The poverty of modern architecture stems from the atrophy of sensuality. Everything is dominated by reason in order to create amazement without proper research. We must mistrust pictorial elements if they are not assimilated by instinct. It is not a matter of simply constructing beautiful ensembles of lines, but above all, dwellings for great people.” Eileen Gray I N T R O D U C T I O N In the first years of its existence, E.1027 had an inspirational impact on all those who had been fortunate enough to stay in it or who came for a visit. Looking at the black and white images today, and thus jaded by contemporary excesses in design, most contemporary viewers of these monochrome photographs would fail to understand the building's draw. Perhaps the extended interchange between Jean Badovici, Eileen Gray and Le Corbusier gives an indication of its dense design quality. Le Corbusier painted some 8 murals on the walls of E.1027, much to Eileen Gray's dismay. One can interpret these murals as an expression of Le Corbusier's attempt to appropriate the building. If the act of mural painting itself does not convince dispassionate onlookers of Le Corbusier's attempt at appropriation, then perhaps the subsequent publication of photographs of these murals in his Œuvre Complète 1938-1946 without mentioning the name of the architects as well as his successful efforts to having the house bought by one of his many admirers, who believed for most of her life that E.1027 was Le Corbusier's design; not to mention the Cabanon that Le Corbusier had built a few yards away from E.1027, will convince the dispassionate onlooker to gradually understand that this must have been an interesting design in the eyes of one of the celebrated figures in modern architecture. The seminar will seek to understand the sensuous and intellectual qualities of E.1027. Today, E.1027 is partially renovated but incomplete, lacking many important details such as the colored walls and ceiling, the different materials covering the various surfaces and the pieces of fitted and loose furniture. Its aura is largely absent. The seminar intends to uncover this aura so as to allow contributions to be made for its gradual restitution over the course of the next years. E I L E E N G R A Y , J E A N B A D O V I C I A N D E . 1 0 2 7 From 1926 to 1929 Eileen Gray, together with Jean Badovici, designed and built a small vacation house directly on the the Côte d'Azur, the French Mediterranean coast, at Roquebrune-Cap E.1027 Layered Atmospheres: Color, Materials, Fitted and Loose Furniture Seminar 8 The University of Texas at Austin Wilfried Wang ! Martin. At the time of construction the Mediterranean coast had yet to become the popular summer vacation destination that it is today. To be sure, it had for some time already been the preserve for the British upper and upper-middle class tourists, hence the many names of hotels with references to British royalty, even to the extent of the city of Nice naming the coastal street Promenade des anglais. Eileen Gray (1878-1976) was an Anglo-Irish artists, designer and architect from one of these upper class families and for the longest part of her long life, her own family ties to nobility was the cause of her personal revolt. One form of expression of this revolt was the design and construction of a vacation house away from Paris, the capital of France, where she lived during the colder months of the year. She was taken by the rough immediacy of the Côte d'Azur, attracted to the different life that was possible in distant and virtual seclusion. This overall setting gave rise to one of the most extraordinary comprehensive creations, a total work of art, that E.1027 represents. The house is Eileen Gray's first complete design for a landscaped garden, house, set of interior rooms, fitted and loose furniture, window systems, hardware, color and material scheme. Jean Badovici played a minor role in the design, most importantly encouraging Gray to design and build the house in the first place (not without a large portion of self-interest) as well as having an input in a few core issues, such as the idea of a helical staircase. E.1027 is a numeronym in which the letter "E" stands for Eileen, the numbers "10" and "2" " stand for the letters "J" and "B" respectively, initials for Jean Badovici, and finally the number "7" for the letter "G". It is thus that Jean Badovici is embraced by Eileen Gray. Badovici was the editor of the French avant-garde architectural journal L'Architecture Vivante, publishing all the important projects of the period. Through her friendship with Badovici, Gray worked inofficially on the journal and therefore was aware of the published work. She had kept many copies of the journal in her library. At that time Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici were lovers. Gray bought two properties in the area, building a house on each site, one for Jean Badovici and one for herself. Her name does not appear in the land registry for the site at Roquebrune-Cap Martin, instead, the property and thus the house was in Badovici's name. E.1027 is therfore Gray's gift to her lover. In 1932 Gray moved to her second house at Castellar, called Tempe à Pailla, meaning "the time to harvest". With this second house, in many ways an even more compact building than E.1027, she essentialized a number of qualities and elements, nonetheless here too demonstrating her creative ingenuity from the overall configurational composition to the design of loose furniture. The history of this house is a complex one, involving senses of betrayal; of intrusion; of death and murder; of envy; of rivalries; of incompetence and sloppiness in construction and reconstruction; and currently, of some sense of hope. It is the perfect plot for an almost unbelievable movie, a quality that was recently recognized by an Irish film director Mary McGuickan, who produced a fictionalized account entitled The Price of Desire (2015). E.1027 Layered Atmospheres: Color, Materials, Fitted and Loose Furniture Seminar 9 The University of Texas at Austin Wilfried Wang ! E.1027 was gradually stripped of its original loose and fitted furniture.
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