Finding aid for the Eileen Gray architectural drawings, 1930-1947 2002.M.25
Ann Harrison
Special Collections
2013
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles 90049-1688
Business Number: (310) 440-7390
Fax Number: (310) 440-7780
reference@getty.edu
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections
Title: Eileen Gray architectural drawings
Creator:
Le Corbusier, 1887-1965
Creator:
Badovici, Jean
Creator:
Gray, Eileen, 1878-1976
Identifier/Call Number: 2002.M.25
Identifier/Call Number: /repositories/3/resources/226
Physical Description:
8 Linear Feet
Date (inclusive): 1930-1947
Request Materials: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory
through the
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Abstract: Sixteen architectural drawings once owned by architect and designer Eileen Gray
comprise the archive. Original drawings and reprographic prints for three of Gray's own architectural projects form the bulk
of the archive, with the
rest being prints of drawings for two projects by Gray's colleagues, Le Corbusier and Jean Badovici. Although few in number,
the drawings in this
collection document key aspects of Gray's architectural work, including her interest in minimal housing and in the role of
architecture in public
welfare, as well as her interactions with colleagues.
Language of Material: Collection material is in French.
Related Archival Materials
Most of Eileen Gray's drawings, models and associated material were destroyed in World War II. Significant holdings of surviving
Eileen Gray
architectural materials are in London in the Archive of Art and Design at the Victoria and Albert Museum and in the Royal
Institute of British
Architects Drawing Collection. Further material is held by the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin.
The Getty Research Institute holds further collections relating to Jean Badovici: the Jean Badovici papers, 1925-1950, Accession
no. 880412 and the
Jean Badovici letters received, 1924-1951, Accession no. 850941.
Scope and Content of Collection
Sixteen architectural drawings once owned by architect and designer Eileen Gray comprise the archive. Original drawings and
reprographic prints for
three of Gray's own architectural projects form the bulk of the archive, with the rest being prints of drawings for two projects
by Gray's colleagues,
Le Corbusier and Jean Badovici. Although few in number, the drawings in this collection document key aspects of Gray's architectural
work, including her
interest in minimal housing and in the role of architecture in public welfare, as well as interactions with colleagues.
The three Eileen Gray projects represented in the archive come from the mature period of her architectural activity. The studio
apartment for Jean
Badovici, the Romanian architect, editor of
L'Architecture vivante, and briefly Gray's personal and professional partner,
is the only one of these projects to have been realized and is often cited along with E.1027 and Tempe à Pailla as representing
Gray's finest work. The
two other projects documented here, the Maison ellipse (Ellipse House) and the Centre culturel et social (Cultural and Social
Center), were hypothetical
projects exploring social issues. The Badovici apartment and the Ellipse House, although very different expressions of domestic
space, both relate to
Gray's ongoing interest in minimal living environments. The Ellipse House and the Cultural and Social Center are products
of Gray's growing concern from
the mid 1930s onward with public welfare and conditions for the working class.
The prints of drawings for Le Corbusier's Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux at the Exposition Internationale in Paris in 1937 and
one of Jean Badovici's
post-World War II reconstruction projects included in the collection are also tied to Gray. A frequent visitor at E.1027,
Le Corbusier admired her work.
He invited Gray to exhibit designs for a Vacation and Leisure Center, her first large-scale public project, in his pavilion
at the exposition. Badovici
took part in various reconstruction projects after the war, including the rebuilding of Maubeuge, in which Gray also played
a minor role. These drawings
are for an unrealized infill project with 20 houses in three clusters in the town of Hellemmes near Lille in northern France.
The drawings in the archive are original unless otherwise indicated in the inventory. The dates given for Gray's work are
project dates, whereas the
dates for the Le Corbusier and Badovici projects are taken from the drawings.
Processing History
The collection was initially housed upon receipt by Vladimira Stefura. In 2013, Ann Harrison cataloged the collection.
Preferred Citation
Eileen Gray architectural drawings, 1930-1947, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2002.M.25.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2002m25
Publication Rights
Access
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Biographical/Historical Note
Eileen Gray came to architecture late. She designed her first structures in her mid-forties, after achieving significant success
as a furniture and
interior designer in Paris. With only nine realized projects, most of them renovations, Gray's small architectural output
belies her importance in the
development of modernist architecture in France. Perhaps architectural historian and critic Joseph Rykwert put it best when
he described Eileen Gray's
contribution as "condensed."
Born in Ireland in 1878 into an aristocratic Scots-Irish family, Gray moved to Paris in 1902 to study art, having already
taken classes in drawing and
painting at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. She briefly attended two art schools in Paris, but soon grew tired of
the formal structure of
classes and the limitations of drawing. Instead Gray entered a period of travel using Paris as her base and began exploring
other artistic media on her
own. In 1907 she settled permanently in Paris and began her artistic career in earnest.
Eileen Gray first designed furnishings. She was famous for her lacquerwork furniture and her rugs, produced in workshops set
up in collaboration with
Seizo Sugawara and Evelyn Wyld respectively. These pieces were marked by meticulous mastery of traditional craft techniques,
which were then used to
produce forms and designs drawn from the modern aesthetic. In 1913 she began to acquire significant clients after the success
of her entry in the Salon
de la Societé des Artistes Décorateurs. In 1919 Gray's career was further advanced when she received an important commission
from Madame Mathieu Levy to
design an entire interior, not just individual furnishings, for Levy's apartment on the rue de Lota.
The early 1920s was a period of transition for Gray. Her furniture designs became increasingly modern, incorporating industrial
materials like steel
tubing. Her interior designs appeared increasingly architectonic, shifting from elaborating and decorating spaces to creating
and defining new space
within an interior. She was also making connections with artists with whom she shared an aesthetic. Gray's inclusion in an
exhibition sent to Amsterdam
in 1922 and her Bedroom-Boudoir de Monte Carlo entry in the 1923 Salon des Artistes Décorateurs brought her work to the attention
of the de Stijl
architects Jan Wils and J.P.P. Oud, and led to an entire issue of the Dutch avant-garde journal
Wendigen being devoted to
her work in 1924. She counted among her professional friends and acquiantances Le Corbusier and Robert Mallet-Stevens, as
well as Walter Gropius and
Frederick Kiesler. It was during this period that Gray crossed over from interior designer to architect in the way she altered
and shaped space. The
transition was a gradual blurring of the boundary between the disciplines, and architectural historians disagree as to Gray's
first work of actual
"architecture," variously citing the 1922 design of the interior and facade of her Paris store Jean Désert, the 1923 hypothetical
reworking of Adolf
Loos's Villa Moissi or even the 1926 initiation of work on E.1027.
Precisely when Gray became an architect may be hard to pinpoint, but the reason for this transition is clear — Jean Badovici.
When asked late in her
life about her shift to architecture Gray said that the impetus was Badovici's question, "Why don't you build?" She had already
been moving in that
direction, but for a woman with no architectural training it must have seemed an unrealistic fantasy until Badovici provided
the catalyst. Gray and
Badovici first met in 1921, at a time when Badovici, an architect by training, was trying to establish himself as a writer
and critic. In 1923 he would
take on the editorship of
L'Architecture vivante, one of the key modernist architectural journals of the era. Gray and
Badovici soon began a personal and professional partnership, which though short-lived, brought Gray into the nexus of the
French modernism.
In much the same way she had painstakingly learned the art of Asian lacquer, Gray taught herself to be an architect. She traveled
with Badovici to see
and study key buildings and learned by reworking architectural designs. She studied theoretical and technical books, took
drafting lessons, and arranged
to have Adrienne Gorska take her along to building sites. Most importantly, she had the support of Badovici and the advantage
of the interactions with
the circle of modern architects associated with his journal, especially Le Corbusier. The years from 1922/1923 to 1926 served
as Eileen Gray's
architectural apprenticeship. While still carrying on her interior design career, Gray created a series of hypothetical projects
of her own and realized
several substantial renovations in collaboration with Badovici. Gray's first major realized work for which she was principal
architect and designer was
E.1027 (1926-1929), a house on the Côte d'Azur, built both with and for Jean Badovici. The house was designed as a vacation
home for Badovici and he
collaborated on parts of the design, especially technical aspects, such as the window mechanisms, which he patented. However,
the overall conception of
the house and its construction are the wotk of Gray, who designed E.1027 as a response to the spatial principles and forms
of Le Corbusier. Gray put
into E.1027 everything she had learned reading and watching Le Corbusier and the other architects she had met in Badovici's
circle. The house
incorporated most of Le Corbusier's "five points of the new architecture," such as the stair to the roof and the pilotis,
but at the same time it was a
critique. Gray introduced new elements into the design, reacting against what she saw as the over-intellectualized approach
of the architectural
avant-garde, which she found too doctrinaire and lacking in humanism.
E.1027 typifies Gray's approach to architecture. Her main focus is the relationship of the building and its occupant, with
an emphasis on bodily
experience, on convenience and comfort. Gray's architecture is noteworthy for using light and space in original and inventive
ways. She believed
strongly that a house must be in tune with and respond to its setting and environment, and to that end she spent two years
at the isolated site
designing the structure and personally supervising construction. At a time when the modern movement focused on the exterior
of structures, she was very
concerned with the interior and the life that would be led within the walls. Gray sought to eliminate the traditional space
designations between rooms,
yet she also did not want a totally open plan, which she found sterile. Through a complex integration of interior divisions
and furnishings, Gray
created a sequence of multi-functional spaces designed to expand or contract or even completely change function in response
to the needs and desires of
the inhabitants. Gray's designs seem similar to other modern buildings in general form and appearance — all have the smooth
expanses of white walls, the
strip windows, the flat roofs — yet each is a different, idiosyncratic design responding to the environment of the site and
the personality of the
occupants.
In the 1930s Gray's work continued to develop. After Badovici and Gray ended their relationship, Gray built another Côte
d'Azur house, Tempe à Pailla
(1932-1934). In this house, with only herself to please, Gray continued her experimentation with space, further blurring the
distinction between
interior and exterior spaces, which she had begun at E.1027, and her pursuit of ingenious combinations of comfort and functionality
in the furnishings.
Her other projects in this period became more socially progressive in response to the shifting political climate in France
with the rise of the Popular
Front and Gray's own reading of Trotsky. In 1937 Le Corbusier invited her to exhibit the designs for a workers' vacation center
in his Pavillon des
Temps Nouveaux, having seen the idea developing while a frequent guest at E.1027.
World War II marks a boundary in Gray's career. She was interned as a foreign national, her houses were looted and many of
her drawings and models were
destroyed by bombing. Back in Paris after the war, she faded from attention, yet she still worked away in obscurity, designing
hypothetical projects,
reworking furniture designs, even renovating another house for herself on the Côte d'Azur beginning in 1954. As the histories
of modernism began to be
written, Gray was forgotten or dismissed as derivative. E.1027 still received some attention but was frequently misattributed
as being the work of
Badovici alone, or even of Le Corbusier. It was only shortly before her death in 1976 that Gray's work, both her furnishings
and her architecture, were
rediscovered and are now deemed to be an important and original contribution to modernism.
Arrangement
The collection is arranged by project.
Acquisition Information
Acquired in 2002.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Modern movement (Architecture) -- France
Architecture -- France -- 20th century
Architectural drawings -- 20th century
Architectural drawings /repositories/3/archival_objects/110220
flatfile 6**
Apartment for Jean Badovici,
/repositories/3/archival_objects/110221
1930-1931
Scope and Contents
Gray renovated a small studio apartment at 7 rue Chateaubriand in Paris for Jean Badovici. The studio was an irregularly shaped
space, roughly 24
x 15 feet. Fresh from attending the exhibition accompanying the 1929 CIAM conference in Frankfurt focusing on minimal housing,
Gray applied the
principles of planning, multi-functionalism and storage that she had developed during the creation of E.1027 to this small
space and decorated it
with her designs. Gray was able to provide for all the varied needs of the apartment's occupant with a certain level of luxury
and comfort through
several means. She used metal mesh screens and sliding metallic curtains in curved tracks, as well as furnishings and decorative
elements to
designate separate functional spaces. She devised innovative solutions to problems created by the small size of the space,
such as concealed
drop-down stairs for access to overhead storage compartments, and she made design elements serve multiple functions. Badovici
moved into the
apartment in March 1931 and shortly thereafter Gray exhibited designs and photographs of the space in the second annual exhibition
of the Union
des Artistes Modernes (UAM), of which she was a founding member.
The drawing shows two sections.
Maison ellipse (Ellipse House),
/repositories/3/archival_objects/110222
1936
Scope and Contents
The Ellipse House ties together several threads of Gray's interests: temporary structures, experimental materials and forms,
and minimal housing.
Said to be inspired by an aluminum Airstream-like trailer, the Elliptical House was a small structure designed for workers
on remote sites,
temporary disaster housing, or even a vacation home. The advantages of the structure were its adaptability, mobility and low
cost. Prefabricated
from asbestos cement and fiberglass, it could be easily shipped on trucks and erected (and dismantled) quickly, on almost
any site with unskilled
labor since it needed only a minimal foundation. The modular units, roughly 2.5 x 3 meters in size and elliptical in section,
could be combined in
different ways. For example, a home might be comprised of three units and an added porch.
flatfile 7**
Retouched print of plan, section and elevation /repositories/3/archival_objects/110223
flatfile 8**
Print of detailed and dimensioned section /repositories/3/archival_objects/110224
Centre culturel et social (Cultural and Social Center),
/repositories/3/archival_objects/110225
1946-1947
Scope and Contents
Gray's Cultural and Social Center ties in with a post-war French initiative intended to encourage young people to remain in
the provinces by
providing local cultural resources. The idea of cultural decentralization, reducing the primacy of Paris especially, had first
been put forward by
the Popular Front in the mid 1930s, but it gained new life after the war when French youth seemed to be flocking to urban
centers. Like other
examples of Gray's socially progressive architecture of the 1930s and 1940s, such as the Vacation and Leisure Center, the
Workers' Club, the Child
Care Center, and the prefabricated Worker's Colony, this project aims to use architecture and public planning to help solve
problems caused by
societal and economic shifts of the period. The Center displays Gray's focus on multi-functionality on a large-scale. One
structure holds
conference rooms, galleries, a library, and a restaurant, as well as indoor and outdoor theaters.
flatfile 2**
Print of ground floor plan /repositories/3/archival_objects/110226
First floor plan /repositories/3/archival_objects/110227
roll 1**
Original drawing /repositories/3/archival_objects/110228
flatfile 3**
Print /repositories/3/archival_objects/110229
roll 1**
Second floor /repositories/3/archival_objects/110230
roll 1**
Roof plan /repositories/3/archival_objects/110231
flatfile 4**, flatfile 5**
Elevations and sections /repositories/3/archival_objects/110232
flatfile 1**
Le Corbusier, Pavillon des temps nouveaux,
/repositories/3/archival_objects/110233
1936 December
Scope and Contents
Print with plans, elevation, sections.
Jean Badovici, Ville de Hellemmes-Lille Nord,
/repositories/3/archival_objects/110234
1946 March
Scope and Contents
Prints of drawings at various scales.
flatfile 9**
Site plan /repositories/3/archival_objects/110235
flatfile 10**
Plan /repositories/3/archival_objects/110236
flatfile 11**
Street elevation and section /repositories/3/archival_objects/110237
flatfile 12**
Garden elevation and section /repositories/3/archival_objects/110238
flatfile 13**
Cellar and roof plans; construction details /repositories/3/archival_objects/110239