{"id":10021959,"date":"2025-10-17T18:10:46","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T17:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chapter.digital\/e-1027-eileen-gray-and-the-house-by-the-sea\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T11:28:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T10:28:54","slug":"e-1027-eileen-gray-and-the-house-by-the-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chapter.digital\/en\/e-1027-eileen-gray-and-the-house-by-the-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"E.1027 \u2014 Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eileen Gray’s attempt to create a discreet yet avant-garde refuge for herself led to a conflict\u2014and to a story that, like few others, tells of the expression of female self-determination and societal expectations. The documentary film \u00bbE.1027\u2014Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea\u00ab approaches this fascinating chapter of architectural and design history in a sensitive yet visually powerful way.<\/p>\n

\u00bbA house is not a machine to live in. It is the shell of man, his extension, his release, his spiritual emanation\u00ab\u2014this is how the Irish-born architect<\/a> and designer Eileen Gray<\/a> once summed up her understanding of architecture. What lies behind these words becomes clear when one takes a closer look at her first house, a masterpiece as discreet as it is avant-garde, named \u00bbE.1027<\/a>\u00ab. Gray built the villa, located on the C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur, in 1929 as a refuge for herself. The name is a cryptic combination of her initials and those of the journalist and architect Jean Badovici, with whom she built the house. Originally, it was conceived as a place that would allow them to hide from the world, if necessary, but also from each other. While its flat roof and clear lines clearly corresponded to the spirit of modernism, Gray added a sensual-intuitive layer to the design, which ultimately meant that \u00bbE.1027\u00ab had nothing to do with Le Corbusier’s coined term of the \u00bbliving machine\u00ab.<\/p>\n

\"Villa<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Painted over and appropriated<\/p>\n

Gray began her career as a lacquer artist, but gradually evolved into a designer and interior architect, creating design icons with the \u00bbAdjustable Table E 1027\u00ab and many other designs. Not only her refuge on the C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur, but also her furniture and furnishings testify that Eileen Gray was far ahead of her time. Long before Mies van der Rohe, the artist, who grew up in an aristocratic family in County Wexford, Ireland, experimented with tubular steel furniture. The \u00bbNon Conformist Armchair\u00ab (1926) was an important piece of furniture of its time not only because of its formal language, but also because of its statement, which perfectly matched the attitude of its creator: One side\u2014the one with the armrest\u2014was for leaning back and smoking, the other allowed for the freedom needed when gesturing and discussing.<\/p>\n