Eileen Gray



Eileen Gray

I am ashamed to say I knew nothing of the important woman designer and architect Eileen Gray until earlier this year when we happened upon something about her in an antique shop.  My friend knew of her and suggested she was worth investigating, I did and I agree, she’s a fascinating woman.

The Eileen Gray story has everything....wealth and austerity, fame and obscurity, youth, beauty and style, love and love lost and overall, extraordinary talent and style.

Eileen Gray was born in Ireland in 1878 to a wealthy, privileged family.  Her father was a painter, her mother a baroness and their fifth and last child was always encouraged to be creative.  She was one of the first women to study at the Slade School of Fine Art in London and she also studied in Paris.  France became home for much of her life.

What I would like to do is to continue the Eileen Gray story from it’s middle because I can’t get this romantic tale out of my head.

Eileen was becoming reasonably well known as a designer when she met a struggling Romanian architect named Jean Badovici.  They became lovers and he encouraged her to become an architect despite her having no formal qualifications.  Her first real project was to design a holiday house for Badovici.  She was  very serious about this and spent weeks travelling up and down the coastline  of the French Riviera  in her MG roadster trying to find the perfect site for the home. 

Veranda to enjoy view of Bay of Monaco

 She had been looking all one summer day in 1926, driving up the narrow winding mountain roads from Menton to Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. She parked at the railway station, deciding to have a swim, grabbing her suit and towel from the car and walking across a narrow path and then along the cliffs until she came to a platform which she realized would be the perfect site.  She bought the land and had the deeds put  in the name of her lover, Jean Badovivi.

Eileen designed the home with particular regard to the wind and angles of the sun at different times of the day.  The rooms were designed so that the private rooms were at the back, facing the woods and the public rooms for entertaining faced the sea.  The building was like a ship using forms which were long and narrow with many decks for the views.  Eileen named this house E-1027.  The E was for Eileen.  10 was for Jean (10^th letter in the alphabet). 2 was for Badovici and 7 was for Grey.

Eileen stayed on site for the 3 years it took to build, living alone, supervising the project.  She also designed all the furniture for the home.  E-1027 was a huge undertaking for an architect of little experience and she did not stray from her vision of the home.


E-1027 house, note the life preserver ring hanging off the veranda

Upon completion she and Badovici, as well as friends, would enjoy the beautiful house and location.  One of Badovici’s friends was the famous French architect and designer Le Corbusier.  On an occasion when Eileen was not at E-1027, Le Corbusier painted 8 murals in the home.  Eileen was furious as the large art works  did not fit her vision of the house and she wanted them removed. This did not happen however and Eileen never returned to the house.
 The relationship with Badovici broke up and because his name was on the deed he was the recipient of a very expensive gift from the independently wealthy Gray.



One of 8 LeCorbusier muras in E-1027l

 During WW2 the house was occupied first by Italian soldiers and then by the Germans.  Eileen was not disappointed when she found that the Germans had used the Le Corbusier murals as target practise!

After Badovici died, there were a series of  owners who stripped the house of  furniture, selling it ( known to be valuable) and the home fell into disrepair.  The valuable Le Corbusier murals and the realisation that Eileen Gray is an important modern architect have now encouraged the restoration of this wonderful building.

Eileen Gray died in 1976, in Paris, after a fall. She was 98 years old and still working until the end.  She was a pioneer in the modern movement of architecture. 
I will write another blog post about this designer as this house was only one part of her very interesting life.

E-1027 House