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Collection Guide

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Finding aid for the Eileen Gray architectural drawings, 1930-1947

2002.M.25

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Architectural drawings

Flatfile 6**

Apartment for Jean Badovici, 1930-1931

Scope and Content Note

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), 1936

Scope and Content Note

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

Flatfile 8**

Print of detailed and dimensioned section

Centre culturel et social (Cultural and Social Center), 1946-1947

Scope and Content Note

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

First floor plan

Roll 1**

Original drawing

Flatfile 3**

Print

Roll 1**

Second floor

Roll 1**

Roof plan

Flatfile 4**-5**

Elevations and sections

Flatfile 1**

Le Corbusier, Pavillon des temps nouveaux, 1936 December

Scope and Content Note

Print with plans, elevation, sections.

Jean Badovici, Ville de Hellemmes-Lille Nord, 1946 March

Scope and Content Note

Prints of drawings at various scales.

Flatfile 9**

Site plan

Flatfile 10**

Plan

Flatfile 11**

Street elevation and section

Flatfile 12**

Garden elevation and section

Flatfile 13**

Cellar and roof plans; construction details

Container List

Architectural drawings

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