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Eileen Gray and E.1027: Living with Ghosts - Tranquillity & Tragedy

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Eileen Gray and E.1027: Living with Ghosts - Tranquillity & Tragedy 1 Eileen Gray & E.1027 – Living with Ghosts: Tranquillity & Tragedy Ralph Kent wsa ii Eileen Gray and E.1027: Living with Ghosts - Tranquillity & Tragedy Introduction Eileen Gray (1878‐1976) was a pioneer designer within the Modern movement, though her contribution only started to be fully appreciated after her death. E.1027, completed in 1929, is remarkable for the way in which Gray seamlessly fused many of the key tenets of Modernism and industrial production with more personal, emotional, intimate touches from her childhood in Ireland and her twenties in Art Nouveau Paris. Gray recognised that it was hard for people to adopt cold, stark Modernism and adapted it to make it more welcoming. More celebrated Modern architects, contemporary to Gray, notably Corbusier, did not recognise the importance of emotionalism until far later in their careers. What makes Gray’s achievement all the more impressive is that E.1027 was the first house she had ever designed and built, as she was approaching 50, without having received any formal architectural training. As such, Maison en Bord de Mer represents the embodiment of her life and the pinnacle of her broad and deep artistic understanding. Gray’s life prior to E.1027 Eileen Gray was born in Ireland, the youngest of five siblings, to a Scottish‐titled, Irish family. Her childhood was a troubled one – she frequently complained of seeing ghosts. The reworking of her elegant Georgian family home, by her parents in 1895 into a nineteenth century Tudor‐style country house distressed Gray and was a significant factor behind her move to London in 18981. She retained a photo of the original property until her death, and it is reasonable to assume that the elegant simplicity of this home and its associated memories were an influencing factor in the composition of E.1027. Brownswood – before and after reconstruction in the Victorian Gothic style2 In London, Gray studied at the Slade School, an institution with a strong emphasis on the Arts & Crafts Movement. Her initial enthusiasm waned, however, as she was not convinced by the teaching methods, which focused on the emulation of the pre‐Rafaelite masters and the teachings of Ruskin. Staff encouraged students to visit galleries to copy masterpieces and it was during a trip to the V&A that Gray first became exposed to the laborious art of oriental lacquering3. 1 Peter Adam, Eileen Gray – Architect Designer, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2000), p.16. 2 Ibid, pp.16-17. 3 Adam, p.22. 2 Eileen Gray & E.1027 – Living with Ghosts: Tranquillity & Tragedy Ralph Kent wsa ii In 1900, Gray visited Paris to see the Exposition Universale. She fell in love with the city and its modernism, and two years later, she moved there. Through her acquaintance with Seizo Sugawara, she honed her lacquer skills, and by 1912 she had a wealthy client list. In 1914, she began producing the “Le Destin” screen for Jacques Doucet, a patron of the arts4. Le Destin – Classical side5 Le Destin – modernist side “Le Destin” depicts a classical representation on one side, with a modern, abstracted image on the reverse, indicating Gray’s ability to adapt and move between artistic movements, and also her ethos that design should be polyvalent, flexible and beautiful – all evidenced in E.1027. Working with lacquer requires a huge amount of patience – over 20 coats are required to be overlaid, and each coat must have time to dry before the next is applied. It is also extremely punishing for the hands. It is instructive that Gray focused on this metier, and the patience it requires and her willingness to get her hands dirty in what is still a male‐dominated profession. World War I saw Gray temporarily relocate to London. Upon her return to Paris in 1919 she had become more disillusioned with her lacquer work and its “class‐bound opulence”6, and began to question how art could address social inequity and wider issues. At that time, she met the Romanian architect Jean Badovici (1893‐1956). Despite being 14 years her junior they became lovers. In 1923, they worked together on L’Architecture Vivante. Badovici was attracted to Gray’s financial independence and artistic ability, whilst Gray admired his drive and desire to create meaningful work7. 4 Stefan Heckler & Christian F. Muller, Eileen Gray, Works & Projects (Barcelona: Gustavo Gill, 1993), p.13. 5 Adam, pp.78-79. 6 Frances Stonor-Saunders, The House That Eileen Built, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,524083,00.html> [accessed 16 March 2007]. 7 Stonor-Saunders. 3 Eileen Gray & E.1027 – Living with Ghosts: Tranquillity & Tragedy Ralph Kent wsa ii Whilst Badovici gave Gray exposure to the designs of the latest buildings, Gray largely taught herself architecture through the study of contemporary works – most significantly Adolf Loos’s Villa Moissi in 1923, where she recognised the importance of independence of volumes and the privacy benefits derived from a labyrinthine internal arrangement within a compact entity, which was later reinterpreted within the plans of E.1027. 4 Eileen Gray & E.1027 – Living with Ghosts: Tranquillity & Tragedy Ralph Kent wsa ii E.1027 – Gray’s masterpiece In 1925, after weeks of scouring the coast for the ideal location, Gray found the site for E.1027 at Roquebrune‐Cap‐Martin, between Menton and Nice, in the south of France, on a rocky position between the sea and a railway track. Whilst Badovici helped mentor Gray with some of the technical aspects of the plans, for example, suggesting pilotis to help raise up the living room and the spiral staircase to access the roof terrace, the lion’s share of the design is attributed to Gray. The project was intended to be a retreat for Badovici, but also as a show home to show future clients8. E.1027 site map and photo9 ‐ a grounded ocean liner In 1926, work began on site. Gray rented an apartment in Roquebrune, hired a mason and two assistants and remained on site for three years, overseeing the work. It was hard and lonely work, a true labour of love. There was no road access, so materials had to be transported to site by wheelbarrow10. Badovici visited occasionally – after all, the house was to be his summer residence – the land had been bought in his name, and the design was in response to his needs. The name of the house – E.1027 ‐ is a cipher that reflects Gray and Badovici’s co‐operation – “E" for "Eileen", 10 for the letter "J", 2 for "B" and 7 for "G" ‐ "Eileen Jean Badovici Gray". It is testimony to Gray’s private nature that she encoded the house name. The alpha‐numeric name may also have been a light‐hearted poke at the machinist aspects of Modernism11. 8 Adam, p.175. 9 Colin St. John Wilson, The Other Tradition of Modern Architecture – The Uncompleted Project, (London: Academy Editions, 1995), p.108. 10 Stonor-Saunders. 11 Adam, p.191. 5 Eileen Gray & E.1027 – Living with Ghosts: Tranquillity & Tragedy Ralph Kent wsa ii E.1027 was designed as a maison minimum – a “house envisaged from a social point of view, minimum space, maximum of comfort”12 – simple, yet efficient. It is a house primarily designed for independence and study, but sufficiently large to welcome a select group of friends and entertain them in comfort. The L‐shaped dwelling occupies a ground footprint of 150 square metres on the first floor, and 110 square metres on the ground13, reflecting the building’s sympathetic construction, nestled into the side of the cliff. The compactness of the design was in keeping with the philosophy of the post‐war reconstruction and an attempt to evolve an efficient pattern book design that could be rolled out on a large‐scale14. E.1027 – external form Many of the design principles of E.1027 had been spelled out by Le Corbusier in his “Five Points of a New Architecture” – an accessible roof deck, a house raised off the ground by pilotis, open‐plan living with free‐facades and ribbon windows. The division between outdoor and indoor space is deliberately eroded. East Elevation 1:20015 12 Caroline Constant and Wilfred Wang (eds.), Eileen Gray, An Architecture For All Senses, (Frankfurt: Deutsches Architektur—Museum, 1996), p. 93. 13 Adam, p.192. 14 Ibid, p.195. 15 Heckler & Muller, p.110. 6 Eileen Gray & E.1027 – Living with Ghosts: Tranquillity & Tragedy Ralph Kent wsa ii West Elevation 1:20016 South Elevation 1:20017 North Elevation 1:20018 16 Heckler & Muller, p.110. 17 Ibid, p.111. 18 Ibid, p.111. 7 Eileen Gray & E.1027 – Living with Ghosts: Tranquillity & Tragedy Ralph Kent wsa ii Like Corbusier, Gray was fascinated by the engineering sophistication of cruise liners, and, like him, she had meticulously measured her cabin dimensions during her travels. E.1027 recalls this strongly. Life rings adorn the terrace balustrade, as if the house was a boat that had become subsumed by the cliffs at Roquebrune. E.1027 from the south west – observe the strong maritime associations on the terrace19 E.1027 was also one of the first houses that attempted to use technology to adapt Modernist architecture to the Southern European climate, through the use of shutters that could slide horizontally and / or fold out like an accordion20. The balustrade on the terrace was made of removable canvas “so that in winter one could warm one’s legs in the heat of the sun”21. E.1027 – pioneering environmental control for modernist houses in Southern Europe22 19 Adam, p.195. 20 Constant & Wang, p.123. 21 Adam, p.205. 22 Ibid, p.200.
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