Clever Confidential Ep. 5: Eileen Gray and the Aura of E-1027
Clever Confidential is Clever’s offshoot series, where we dig into the darker side of design - the shadowy, sometimes sordid tales hiding under a glossy topcoat of respectable legacy.
In Ep. 5 we explore the haunting tale of E-1027, an architectural masterpiece born of love but marred by betrayal, obsession, and tragedy. From its creation by Eileen Gray to its desecration by Le Corbusier, and its descent into decadence during World War II, this house has borne witness to some of humanity’s darkest and most beautiful moments. Hosts Amy Devers and Andrew Wagner uncover the secrets etched into its walls and the spirits that linger within.
Many thanks to this episode’s guest expert Anthony Flint, author of Modern Man: The Life of Le Corbusier, Architect of Tomorrow.
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Amy Devers: [00:00:00] Nestled into the steep, rocky incline of Roquebrune Cap Martin on the French Riviera, overlooking the restless waves of the Mediterranean Sea, stands E1027, a house born of love, Haunted by loss and scarred by obsession. Built by visionary architect Eileen Gray in the throes of a passionate partnership, it was meant to be a sanctuary of modernity.
Instead, it became a witness. A silent observer to the unraveling of love, to desecration at the hands of a rival, and to the stains of war and hedonism that bled through its walls. I'm Amy Devers, And this is Clever Confidential, where we dig into the lesser told stories of the darker side of design. The shadowy, sometimes sordid tales hiding under a glossy top coat of respectable legacy.
This is Episode 5, Eileen Gray and the Aura of E1027. With me today, as always, is writer and editor Andrew Wagner. Together, we'll unravel the story of E1027, a house with a soul. Where beauty met betrayal, and every stone whispers of the lives it sheltered, and the darkness it couldn't escape.
Andrew Wagner: Eileen Gray built her beachside hideaway with her lover, Romanian architect and writer, Jean Badovici, in 1929. doing much of the literal heavy lifting herself, lugging stone and timber up the rocky path to the foundation, right alongside the other construction workers. Situated just outside of Monaco, [00:02:00] Gray had envisioned this retreat as a place for her and Badovici to escape the wilds of 1920s Paris.
But Badovici was 15 years younger than the then 51 year old Gray, and seemed more intent on bringing the Roaring Twenties to the Riviera. Perhaps hastening the star crossed lovers eventual split in 1932, just three years after the house's completion. Despite the couple's relatively short lived romance and its rocky end, the love and care that went into the design and construction of the house is undeniable.
Beginning with its official name, E 1027, E for Eileen, 10 for J, the tenth letter of the alphabet, for Jean, 2 for B, the second letter of the alphabet, for Badovici, and 7 for Gray, the 7the letter in the alphabet.
E1027 has served as the backdrop for some of history's more compelling and oftentimes [00:03:00] horrific events. Eileen Gray never officially became an architect, but in her 40s, encouraged by Jean Bonavici, who had first met Gray while writing about an exhibit featuring her furniture work in the early 1920s, she delved deeply into the study of architecture, the mother of all arts.
The two fell for each other. And their influences quickly rubbed off on one another. Badovici was close friends with Charles Edouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier, and Gray was fascinated with him. Gray was born to an aristocratic, artistic family in Enniscorthy, Ireland, in 1878. She spent her first 11 years of life roaming around the family's stately Georgian mansion, admiring its functional interiors and broad, tall windows, intended to capture every bit of sunlight the gray, overcast Irish countryside would relinquish. In Corbusier's work, [00:04:00] Gray could see the echoes of her childhood. Though quite a bit more austere and stripped down.
Drawn to the pure functionality of Corbusier's manic precision, his influence would become apparent as she began sketching the first cross sections and elevations of E1027 in 1926.
Amy Devers: But Gray was far from a star struck fangirl and had strong opinions about modernists typical disregard for the interiors of their structures.
She was, after all, a classically trained painter, furniture designer and interior designer credited with the design of what has been called the epitome of Art Deco, the Rue de L'Etat apartment of society darling, Juliette Levy, in 1917. So while E1027 began to take shape in a definitive international modern style, the interior displayed Grey's lovingly restrained, lavish touches.
The soft pinks and dark blues of the living room walls, and the aqua greens of the guest bedroom, and the [00:05:00] deep red of the exterior doorway were decidedly unmodern. But mostly, it is the house's intimate scale that belies its stark white, ornament free exterior. And perhaps this is what caught the attention of E 1027's biggest fan, Le Corbusier himself.
As Jason Sayer wrote in his 2019 Metropolis article, The Sorted Saga of Eileen Gray's E1027 House, quote, Inside, the house refrains from using an open plan. Its interior spaces aren't immediately revealed. Rooms are private places waiting to be discovered. Entering either the bedroom or living room comboudoir, for example, requires walking around a series of corners.
Furthermore, given the house's compact size, 1400 square feet and many rooms, Gray was meticulously efficient with space. Such constraints, as is commonly the case, led to delightfully innovative workarounds. [00:06:00] Wardrobes open to become walls, the living room sofa turns into a bed, and a whole host of cupboards and other bespoke furnishings are either embedded or intrinsically in tune with the rest of the house. Unquote.
Corbusier would visit Gray and Badovici in Roquebrune Cap Martin, enjoying the sun, the waves, and of course, E 1027. Corbu coveted the house very early on, and throughout the years tried desperately to buy it, to no avail. In 1932, after Gray and Badovici split, and Badovici got the house, Corbusier became a regular visitor, and this is where E 1027's trajectory would take the first of its many tragic turns.
As Corbu became more and more comfortable in the house, he seemed intent on making it his own, removing Gray's influence in bombastic and surprising ways. Gray had created the interiors to be a respite from the loud and raucous streets of Paris. So in 1938, Corbu painted over them, [00:07:00] apparently in the nude, with the loudest Picasso influenced murals he could come up with, depicting sex acts in garish colors.
Corbusier was no Picasso. It was as if, as architecture critic Rowan Moore noted in 2013, Corbusier was marking his territory, quote, like a urinating dog, unquote. As World War II engulfed Europe in the late 30s and early 40s, E 1027's next indignity featured Nazis using its exterior as target practice.
And then, in August of 1965 Death would come knocking as Corbusier would drown at the beach below as E 1027 peered on. Though his death would prompt renewed interest in the area, and in particular E 1027, it could not stop the spate of despair the house would play host to.
Andrew Wagner: [00:08:00] In 1956, Jean Badovici passed away, and the house was bought by a wealthy Swiss widow named Marie Louise Shelbert. Shelbert died in the 80s. And somehow, her morphine addicted doctor, Peter Kagey, inherited it, using it as an international party pad, replete with orgies and junkies. To help fuel his questionable pastimes, he sold off all of the original Eileen Gray furniture she had created specifically for E1027.
This kept the lights on until 1996, when Kagey’s lights were permanently turned off when he was murdered at E 1027 during one of his parties. And then, E 1027 was abandoned, sunk into a terrible state of disrepair, and had become home to a seemingly never ending rotation of squatters. In 1999, the house was purchased by [00:09:00] Conservatoire du Littoral, and several attempts were made at restoration, though none stuck until Cap Moderne, a non profit established in 2014 to manage E1027, as well as Le Corbusier's small, rustic cabin he'd built above the house, stepped up.
Finally, in 2021, the house has been given the dignity it has always deserved, but could never quite muster itself. E 1027 has been fully renovated and is now open to the public. Corbusier's murals remain intact, a fitting tribute to the wild tales Eileen Gray's house has borne witness to. To help us understand this story from a more nuanced perspective, we talked to Anthony Flint, author of Modern Man, The Life of Le Corbusier, Architect of Tomorrow. He's also a correspondent for Bloomberg City Lab and the Boston Globe and host of the Land Matters podcast. Welcome, [00:10:00] Anthony.
Anthony Flint: I have been a journalist for most of my career. I was at the Boston Globe from 1989 to 2005, writing about the built environment, about architecture, urban planning, urban design. And I wrote a book about Le Corbusier called Modern Man. I was interested in this man and his career. And that's what led me to this wonderful story in the south of France
Amy Devers: and you've been there, correct?
Anthony Flint: Yes. I've had the, uh, just absolute privilege on two occasions. One was researching the book. It's just a magical place. And when you visit E1027, which anyone now can do. It's just like this incredible experience. I don't know if you've [00:11:00] ever been to Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, but it's similar to that where you can really see what the architect had planned and executed for the comfort and pleasure of the inhabitants of that house.
It's on a steep hillside, and it's up on pillars, and it's kind of like a two story white box. And you walk in the front door on the north side, up the hill, and you're greeted by the phrase, Entrez lentement, which is, enter slowly. So this was a beach house message, which was leave your cares behind and, you know, take it easy.
And there's a hammock over here and, uh, you know, you can read your book on the terrace and, and just really experience the present. I mean, it was almost Zen like the way that she designed how you experience [00:12:00] that villa. It had everything, the interior furnishings, she, of course, you know, she, she kind of made her name designing furniture, including a chair that drew its inspiration from the Michelin man.
Right. So, uh, it's this, uh, sort of tubular construction and very comfortable. So it was the perfect mix of being new and interesting and modernist and streamlined, but also comfortable. This was a place where you could really relax, and it was all of those things working together. The interior design, the art of the furniture, the built ins, and then of course, the windows.
When you look out the windows, you're looking over the Mediterranean. You can see Monaco in the distance. It's just an incredible experience.
So we should [00:13:00] start with Eileen Gray. She was the daughter of Irish aristocracy and marched her own drummer, went to Paris, and she was a talented artist. She made sculpture and furniture, and it was very successful.
And you gotta remember, this is Paris in the 20s, you know, this is the roaring 20s, and it was quite a time to be there, and sort of part of that arts and literature era. Group that included Hemingway and Gertrude Stein and Picasso, and it was really quite a scene. So, she became successful enough and was wealthy enough that she sought a getaway and landed on this part of the south of France, Roquebrune Cap Martin.
It's right next to Monaco and Monte Carlo and right at the Italian border, if you can picture that. So, it's this incredible coastline, very steep hillside, beautiful [00:14:00] turquoise water. It's just a magical place. And she had met Jean Badovici, who was an architecture critic, I guess you could say. He was really a bon vivant and together they had a relationship and said let's build a house together.
And they settled on this location, Roquebrun-Cap-Martin. And on this hillside, which was sort of covered with banana palms and lemon trees and, you know, it was, it was very rustic place to build, Eileen Gray really kind of self trained as an architect and engineer and conjured this modernist villa. Together with Jean Badovici, she was thinking that this would be a romantic getaway for them.
And she built it really with the help of, of course, many others, [00:15:00] but she was right there. She built it herself, essentially. She was right there with the wheelbarrows coming in and a lot of attention to the details that she wanted. So, that was Eileen Gray's story, and that's the origins of E 1027, and the story unfolds from there.
Andrew Wagner: I was reading about where she grew up, and that she grew up in this sort of Georgian mansion, and this idea that, you know, the Georgian form of architecture was really, if you look at it and strip it down to its basics, it's very modernist, very boxy, all about getting the natural light. And I thought that was just really intriguing because you would think it would be hard to escape that past, but she seems to have really taken it, done something different with it.
Anthony Flint: Yeah. She put it, you know, put her own twist on it, much like, uh, Le Corbusier, uh, who was steeped in classical architecture and, [00:16:00] you know, traveled to Greece and, uh, the, the ruins and really had a sense of the evolution and history of architecture, but both of them were trying to make a break from the past and especially the late 19th century Victorian era of, um, ornament and of especially dressing things up of the interiors.
If you picture a Victorian interior, you know, you think heavy drapes and beads and, and, and a lot of knickknacks. And I think you're right. I think that the fundamentals were there that she built on, but the modernist task was to strip away that kind of ornamentation and get a bit more minimalist while still serving the needs of the inhabitants of the buildings.[00:17:00]
Uh, so she put that twist on what she had grown up with, and it was, it's really quite a statement. It's, it's, I've said in my book, Modern Man, that Villa Savoie was sort of the architectural equivalent of an iPhone. And E1027 was very much like that when it was completed in 1929.
Andrew Wagner: Gray was very influenced by Corbusier, correct?
Anthony Flint: She was aware of him, certainly, you know, in Paris in the twenties, and she quibbled with his mantra that a house was a machine for living in. She viewed buildings as a little bit more akin to a living organism. And they had many of the same goals, but they, they sort of differed about, you know, the [00:18:00] overall philosophy.
They kind of circled around each other a little bit like tigers in a cage. They didn't do too much of this publicly, but Eileen Gray did criticize this notion of, of houses being a machine for living in, which I'm sure ticked off Le Corbusier.
Andrew Wagner: Right. I, I've heard it, uh, referenced a bit as she, again, you know, a lot of respect for his work and, and his structures, but then she layered on this sort of sensualism and this humanistic layer to it.
Anthony Flint: Yes. Yes. It's so wonderful. And of course, you know, people without, These, you know, like outsized egos, it would be, you know, like, Hey, the more the merrier. This is great. It's creative. It's wonderful. But of course you had this sort of sense of competition and a, you know, somewhat overbearing male orientation or sense of competition, like who is this [00:19:00] woman who, who created this structure? Uh, how could she possibly know as much as me?
Amy Devers: Can you share some background on Gray, Badovici, Le Corbusier, and how all of their relationships intertwined, both professionally and personally?
Anthony Flint: It was kind of like a three way relationship, but without the actual sex. But I'm sure, you know, there was a lot of sexual tension. All right. Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici, uh, you know, they built this house. They envisioned it as a place that they could get away to, but then the relationship started to deteriorate. You know, she, she wanted to just hang out. He really wanted to party and, you know, he would keep inviting people over.
And finally she said, The heck with this, they, they more or less split up. And then she actually went over [00:20:00] to Mentone, which is the last town in France before the Italian border and started working on another house. You know, she kind of like started over and that left Jean to be the owner of Villa E1027.
And he was pals with Le Corbusier. So he invited him down with his wife, Yvonne, to hang out. And that was Le Corbusier's introduction to Roquebrune Cap Martin, and he loved it and stayed there in the 30s. And that's when the trouble began.
Roquebrune Cap Martin had become sort of like a hidden gem in the sense that, you know, various other glitterati would end up settling there. Coco Chanel, for example, built a villa nearby. It was like an incredibly [00:21:00] hip version of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, right? For the avant garde of the time. So Le Corbusier just absolutely ate all of that up.
And he appreciated Villa E 1027, there are these wonderful pictures of him sort of hanging out and, uh, in various states of undress and, and repose, just absolutely loved it, incredible views, and, you know, he was actually really using it the way it was intended, right? But he decided that the place needed a little livening up.
So he painted a series of racy, sexy murals on several of the white interior walls. One of them is kind of a depiction of his wife, Yvonne, and she's smoking a cigarette and sort of leaning back. You have to really, like a lot of modern art, you know, you have to really look at it. It's somewhat Picasso like,[00:22:00] cubist. In the arc of art history. It was actually pretty cool. But Eileen Gray didn't appreciate it because she meant for the walls to be white. And here was this guy coating her house with these racy murals.
Amy Devers: It seems sort of hostile to deface somebody's work like that. And then at the same time, I can imagine, um, if she's kind of already left and Badovici's more the owner of this place, and they were using it as a, as a party pad, I can see why they would think that that would be a good idea.
But in some respects, there seems to be a lack of, actually, respect.
Anthony Flint: Respect. Absolutely. Yeah. He has had nothing if, if not, uh, gumption, shall we say. I mean, can you imagine you go, you have somebody stay in your beach house and they take it upon themselves? Now, of course, you know, he's [00:23:00] the pioneer of 20th century modernism, right?
So…it was pretty high quality, uh, work, but it was still in the view of Eileen Gray, uh, essentially vandalism. It's hard to know, but he, he, I think kind of intended it that way. He had a brief explanation. They exchanged letters about all this and, you know, he, he was just saying he was trying to improve on the interior and had these various other rationales. But yeah, at the end of the day, it was, it was pretty provacative.
Amy Devers: Would that have been to provoke, to start discourse, to have a back and forth, or was that just meant to maybe sort of put her in her place?
Anthony Flint: It's hard to know, maybe a little bit of that, you know, he was the ultimate type A personality and, and, you know, back in Paris is, uh, he was getting international fame, but he was still chasing commissions and he was, [00:24:00] he, you know, incredibly hard worker.
And so when he took off for the South of France, you know, I think he really let, let it all hang out. He kind of, you know, relaxed a little bit, maybe thought in a different way in terms of his creative process. And, you know, like some people go and do watercolors and he just happened to do it on the, on the white wall.
So when Badovicici kind of takes ownership. And, and then has Le Corbusier and his wife Yvonne over. They go down there, as much as they could, uh, through the thirties. And then there's World War II. And then it was left in a, in a state of, uh, a disrepair through the fifties. It transferred to another owner and it was never [00:25:00] really kept up.
Le Corbusier came back to the South of France in the fifties. He was building Unite d'habitation in nearby Marseille. That's that big apartment building that's kind of like the model for high density apartment buildings throughout the world and in the US. He, of course, fondly remembered Roquebrun Cap Martin, so he came back over and, uh, hung out with a guy named Rubitato, who was a plumber from Nice, and ran a little restaurant called Le Toile de Mer, and Le Corbusier and Ivan would go there and eat sea urchins and smoke cigarettes and drink wine.
And the entire time, this is in the early fifties, uh, Le Corbusier is thinking, I, you know, I really, I just want to buy E1027 and make it my own. But he could never close that deal. [00:26:00]
Amy Devers: How could he not close that deal? I mean, that seems a little strange to me. A famous architect can't buy an abandoned house.
Anthony Flint: The, the successive owners just refused to sell it to him. They just wouldn't talk turkey about it. So he built his own little cabin, the Cabanon, right next to Le Trois de mer, Le Corbusier's Cabanon, which is this sort of Thoreau like 12 by 12 log cabin, essentially.
Andrew Wagner: Oh, wow.
Anthony Flint: What that, that was what he decided was going to be his getaway. Much to the chagrin of Yvonne, because they, you know, they were in this perpetual state of almost like camping out. It was like being in a, in a cabin on a luxury ocean liner.[00:27:00]
Andrew Wagner: We're getting to something now we have to talk about Le Corbusier's death. There's, uh, some mystery surrounding that as well.
Anthony Flint: He makes some references in various interviews where he says, you know, I thought, I'm, I'm gonna end my days here. I love it so much. And back in Paris, he had had a number of serious talks with his doctor and who detected Looming heart problems and he had had a couple of incidents and Le Corbusier would walk down to the, to the beach and go for his, his swim.
So the question is whether he went for a swim on that day, um, you know, knowing that it, it was potentially suicidal. But the fact is he, he went for his walk, you know, down the steep hillside onto this wonderful [00:28:00] crescent beach and there are all these jagged rocks all around, dove in, went to swim out, and then the analysis was that, uh, he essentially, you know, had a heart attack while he was out on, on, uh, swimming and managed to get himself back to the beach but it was too late by the time he had been discovered.
So it's a very dramatic ending for this very Interesting man.
So that's how E 1027 eventually was abandoned, but still eluded Le Corbusier, who, who very much would have liked to have just bought it, but he could just never close that deal. Ultimate ly, the fate of E 1027 was that it was, it was, it just ended up being abandoned and dilapidated and, [00:29:00] and, you know. The one successive owner actually was murdered in the building in, in a, uh, uh, sultry, a tale according to, uh, police, uh, that may have involved a, uh, estranged lover, but then there were squatters living there through the, uh, sixties and seventies.
And then it was only fairly recently that there was this recognition that there's this incredible house there. And there's this incredible story on this little patch of hillside and, in Raccoon Cabin, my town, you know, there was a lot of talk about fixing up all this stuff so that visitors could come see the Cabinon, uh, uh, Le Toile de Mer and E1027.
And really the thing that made this whole thing turn around was Michael Liekerman, who is a British entrepreneur. He founded the furniture company [00:30:00] Habitat, which is sort of kind of like a UK version of Ikea. And he is drawn to Roqueburune Cap Martin, and he actually befriends Robert Rebutato, who's the son of the owner of La Toile de Mer that Le Corbusier had befriended.
Liekerman and the younger Rebutato work together to turn pretty much the entire area into a living museum and that is what gives us what's called Cap Modern. And in the meantime, this whole process got a, got a bit of a boost thanks to a movie called The Price of Desire. Wasn't terribly successful at the box office, but it was supported by Julian Lennon.
It featured Alanis Morissette and the Villa, E 1027, is fixed up so that it can be [00:31:00] the appropriate setting for, for this film. So they all came together, uh, the film, the restoration work, and now, today, we have this, uh, coherent visitor campus that reflects all of these kind of twists and turns of, of 20th century modernism and the drama of these various genius figures.
Andrew Wagner: One thing I think we're so taken by it is this idea, this one rather small piece of land that just continually draws these people there, these, that full of drama and full of life and, and full of passion. And it's, it's really interesting that it has this sort of mystical, magical qualities that people are continually drawn back to.
Anthony Flint: It's kind of strange in a way, but it's, it is unquestionably beautiful. And it clearly drew these [00:32:00] incredibly colorful and genius characters to its magical environment. There was, you know, just something about it. And when you do go there, you can smell the lemon trees and the salty air. It's the whole package.
Amy Devers: Just to bring it back to Eileen Gray for a second. Do you think there would have been something visionary about her selecting that piece of land for this essentially very modernist, but also kind of humble beach house, right? It was not pretentious or enormous. And she would have had to work very hard to tame this landscape in order to build this house.
Anthony Flint: I absolutely picture Eileen Gray sort of bushwhacking through the banana palms and, and working with the workers, uh, you know, with, with her wheelbarrow and just, you know, literally getting her hands dirty and [00:33:00] actually building this house and, you know, must've been a very tough lady. Just determined in this wonderful way.
When you go to visit there, you go to this little visitor center that's near the train station. And then the first building you go through on the tour is Eileen Gray's E1027. So, Le Corbusier in that sense, get second billing, or, you know, he's ultimately the star of the show, maybe. But what you see first is her creation. And, you know, that leads you to think. E 1027 was completed in 1929. Le Corbusier built his cabin on in the 50s, and some of the built in features, you know, you kind of wonder, maybe he took his cue from her. Isn't that possible?
Amy Devers: Aw, yeah.
Anthony Flint: Uh, you know, he might have, he might have been copying her. [00:34:00] Who inspired who?
Andrew Wagner: I think it is so interesting again that this house, it lived so many lives and died a few times, but was brought back to life. And like, so I think, uh, you know, it's not an end to the story. It'll be exciting to see where the story goes from here.
Despite the countless twists and innumerable turns, the legendary backdrop and historic characters The troubling story of E 1027 is, sadly, not very unique at all, even today.
Corbu's egomaniacal, misogynistic insistence on exercising his domineering personality over Grey's masterwork is a story as old as time itself. We've seen it repeated again and again, from Hollywood to Silicon Valley to Wall Street to conference rooms of so many industries across the world. The context might change, the tune might sound different, but as Led Zeppelin taught us, the song [00:35:00] remains the same.
Fortunately, thanks to the Cap Modern Association, one of Gray's crowning achievements, if not the crowning achievement, is not merely remembered in photos and words, but can be visited in real life. Today, the monumental story encompassed in this small house stands proudly overlooking the Mediterranean, including Corbusier's crass contributions.
But rather than sulling Gray's work, Corbusier's murals serve to highlight her subtle yet ingenious architectural interventions within this jaw dropping landscape, and her furniture's intervention within the serene architectural space she created. A reminder that one need not shout to get their point across.
Thanks for listening to Clever Confidential. To see images of Eileen Gray's E 10 [00:36:00] 27 House and more, head to cleverpodcast.com. While you're there, you can fill out our listener survey and listen to the first four episodes of Clever Confidential. If you like Clever Confidential and want to hear more, please support us by sharing this episode with your friends and leaving us a five star rating or a kind review.
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Special thanks to Anthony Flint for being our guest and bringing the E1027 history to life. Our huge thanks to Mark Zerowinski for editing and sound design, and to Ilana Nevins for heavy duty production assistance. Our theme music is Astronomy by Thin White Rope from their album In a Spanish Cave, courtesy of Frontier Records. Clever Confidential is [00:37:00] produced by Devers Endeavers. Be sure to check out our other show, Clever, for revelatory conversations with creative visionaries.
Nestled into the steep, rocky incline of Roquebrune Cap Martin on the French Riviera, overlooking the restless waves of the Mediterranean Sea, stands E1027, a house born of love, Haunted by loss and scarred by obsession. Built by visionary architect Eileen Gray in the throes of a passionate partnership, it was meant to be a sanctuary of modernity.
Instead, it became a witness. A silent observer to the unraveling of love, to desecration at the hands of a rival, and to the stains of war and hedonism that bled through its walls.
Sea shore in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, Alpes-Maritimes, France. Behind the trees, the villa E-1027. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Eileen Gray built her beachside hideaway with her lover, Romanian architect and writer, Jean Badovici, in 1929. doing much of the literal heavy lifting herself, lugging stone and timber up the rocky path to the foundation, right alongside the other construction workers. Situated just outside of Monaco, Gray had envisioned this retreat as a place for her and Badovici to escape the wilds of 1920s Paris.
Eileen Gray, circa 1910. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain {{PD-US}}
But Badovici was 15 years younger than the then 51 year old Gray, and seemed more intent on bringing the Roaring Twenties to the Riviera. Perhaps hastening the star crossed lovers eventual split in 1932, just three years after the house's completion. Despite the couple's relatively short lived romance and its rocky end, the love and care that went into the design and construction of the house is undeniable.
Le Corbusier murals at E1027. Photo courtesy of Anthony Flint.
Beginning with its official name, E 1027, E for Eileen, 10 for J, the tenth letter of the alphabet, for Jean, 2 for B, the second letter of the alphabet, for Badovici, and 7 for Gray, the 7the letter in the alphabet.
E1027 has served as the backdrop for some of history's more compelling and oftentimes horrific events. Eileen Gray never officially became an architect, but in her 40s, encouraged by Jean Bonavici, who had first met Gray while writing about an exhibit featuring her furniture work in the early 1920s, she delved deeply into the study of architecture, the mother of all arts.
Anthony Flint, author of Modern Man: The Life of Le Corbusier, Architect of Tomorrow.
Tables in E.1027, Design by Eileen Gray. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Armchair by Eileen Gray, V&A London 02. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The two fell for each other. And their influences quickly rubbed off on one another. Badovici was close friends with Charles Edouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier, and Gray was fascinated with him. Gray was born to an aristocratic, artistic family in Enniscorthy, Ireland, in 1878. She spent her first 11 years of life roaming around the family's stately Georgian mansion, admiring its functional interiors and broad, tall windows, intended to capture every bit of sunlight the gray, overcast Irish countryside would relinquish. In Corbusier's work, Gray could see the echoes of her childhood. Though quite a bit more austere and stripped down.
Drawn to the pure functionality of Corbusier's manic precision, his influence would become apparent as she began sketching the first cross sections and elevations of E1027 in 1926.
Listen to the entire epiode to learn what happens next.
View from E1027. Photo courtesy of Anthony Flint.
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Credits:
Hosts: Amy Devers & Andrew Wagner
Writing and research: Amy Devers, Andrew Wagner, Ilana Nevins
Guests: Anthony Flint
Editing and Sound Design: Mark Zurawinski
Theme Music: “Astronomy” by Thin White Rope courtesy of Frontier Records
Logo design: Laura Jaramillo remixed by Graham Hauser
Production: Devers Endeavors
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