E-1027, 1929, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin France, International Style, Eileen Gray

The House by the Beach

There is a tragedy that comes with E-1027, from the years that it took to built, to its slow deterioration from neglect and utter forgetness. House E-1027 was design, and constructed [with the help of a small local crew workers] by Eileen Gray in 1929, a time where been a women architect yet alone one untrained in the field of architecture was a pejorative term. Yet again Gray in the process of building a summer getaway for her and her current lover (Jean Badovici) created one of the most important structures of architecture in the early 20th century.

Locate in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin along the Côte d’Azur, Gray built an elegant minimalist villa on the shores of the Mediterranean. The only way to get to it been through lemon trees and banana palms, making it inaccessible by car. There on hillside you would see an all-white pastoral retreat "bathed in sunlight, freshened by breezes, and outfitted with sleek yet practical furnishings of leisure"[2].

Grey's way of thought towards this house can be seen in every corner of it. Having design most of the building, even the very furniture inside, everything seems intentional and with meaning. She opposed the dictum of a home been a "machine for living in" regarding it as "intellectual coldness" and instead said that a home is "a living organism" based on her own needs[2]. 

The Canopy would come down very slowly, railing is 1 meter high, she built this in a way that she could look at the horizon from her height which was exactly between the railing and canopy[3]

E-1027 was constructed from the inside out, meaning its form is derived fro

m the spaces within giving some insight on how grey did not care much about the experience from the outside but from the inside. The space centers around the furniture and how the occupants move in physical space, which explains why grey also design all the cabinets, windows, and even furniture in the house. She doesn’t view just walls as architecture but the objects that go on the walls and the floors.

Gray design the house to be experience in, as son as you enter the house you feel this. The villa has no apparent access from above or below but on its foundation. The front of the house faces the sea, and the sides and back are all painted solid white with slice narrow vertical windows cutting the volumes. Most of the exterior solid walls are also broken up by balconies and verandas protected by curtains. . Mainly supported on columns and with a flat roof she asserts the climate the house is in, tropical. She stenciled the words "Entrez Lentement" -enter slowly- on a blank wall on the vestibule of the villa and then had to look for the entrance, maybe as an advice to relax and to not just breeze through the house but to take it all in, as she once said "Entering a house should be like the sensation of entering a mouth which will close behind you"[4]. As you enter you find towards the left a compact kitchen separate from the house proper and towards the right the main living area[4]. On one corner is the foldout dinning table and on the other a reading nook that is also an extra guest room.

 

Gray Maximizes light which enters from all sides(Outdoor spaces bring in light) and alternate between warm and cold light depending on the facade.

Gray was interested in surprise, having pieces of her house been multifunctional[3] . Here privacy and psychic peace were priced over public spaces in that of Bauhaus houses. The doors to each room were placed outside of the sight lines so that each room appeared to be free and alone, but they could also be opened, closed or adjusted according to the changeable climate on the Mediterranean seaside. Grays presence is more prominent in the details of the interior decoration. On the floors were her rugs colored with abstract shapes, scattered through the villa were her furniture[ even her famous Bidendum chairs]. Each piece of furniture was envisioned that for its function but for everything else that it can function as as well. For example, she design a four drawer cabinet so that each drawer could swivel outward at different angles at the same time[4]. There is a deliberate violation of straight lines, an offset in the stacking of shelves and storage spaces creating a sense of movement.

Drawer Cabinet(Left)

Through all of this Gray create a house that is alive, where its not the outside but that inside that creates the experience.  Unfortunately she lost the house to Badovici, and over the years the house suffered from neglect, bad graffiti, drug addict, parties, vagrants, and soldiers in WWII using the walls as target practice. It wasn’t until later that that Villa was acquisitioned by  the French Government and fully restored in 2015.

Transat chair, bedroom chair design for relaxing or napping.

Cited Sources

 [1] Benton, Tim. "E-1027 and the Drôle De Guerre." AA Files, no. 74, 2017, pp. 123-143. EBSCOhost, arktos.nyit.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bvh&AN=769679&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

[2] Flint, Anthony. “Restoring Eileen Gray's E-1027.” Architectmagazine.com, Architectmagazine, 12 Aug. 2015, www.architectmagazine.com/design/restoring-eileen-grays-e-1027_o.

[3] “Eileen Gray's House E-1027.” The Irish Academy, 2014, vimeo.com/73731558.

[4] Willette, Jeanne. “Eileen Gray, Architect: The E.1027 House.” Art History Unstuffed, Arthistoryunstuffed, 24 Nov. 2017, arthistoryunstuffed.com/eileen-gray-architect/.

[5] C., Mark. “E.1027.” Morphology I: Maison Minimum, 1 Jan. 1970, arch100-e1027.blogspot.com/2012/12/morphology-part-i-maison-minimum.html.