Save E.1027
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Recently some architectural magazine in The Netherlands published a cry of distress by Herman and Hans Hertzberger. During a visit this summer to Eileen Gray’s Villa E.1027 they saw the Villa in a deplorable state. The objective of their SOS is to let the world know about this disaster in the making. They hope that The Villa’s fate can still be turned. ArchiNed wants to support Herman and Hans Hertzberger’s campaign by opening a protest guestbook. The appeal for help, including pictures of the current state of the villa can be found here.
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Great article about the attempts of an Irish Paris based architect to interest Irish bodies in saving E.1027 by Eileen Gray
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Updated info on the house…. seems some effort has been made to sort the decay….
http://www.archined.nl/news/9908/EileenGrayrev_eng.html
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Did anyone else see the documentary on RTE 1 last night about Eileen Gray? It was depressing to see the condition of E.1027 early in the program but also heartening to see the fact that moves were being made to restore it.
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@jdivision wrote:
Enjoyed it and Le Corbusier did come across horrendously.
Very true. It was as though Le Corbusier was to be seen as being representative of all things negative about 20th century modernism, whereas Gray was to be thought of in terms of its more human side. Good program none-the-less I think.
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Something tells me he wasn’t the most humble of characters;)
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@jdivision wrote:
Enjoyed it and Le Corbusier did come across horrendously.
It was sad the way it all worked out for her but don’t forget that, at the time, it wasn’t a particularly feted house and it was sold on to someone else and Corb only painted a few murals on the walls. You could argue that it was in a pique of jealousy or you could argue that he was using an influential client to flog his own wares. It’s a pity he didn’t do it more on his own blandness.
I find all that designing everything down to the doorknobs a bit overwhelming. I did like some of her furniture though – the black and chrome sofa; and the coffee table that converted into a writing desk in particular.
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wearnicehats wrote:It was sad the way it all worked out for her but don’t forget that, at the time, it wasn’t a particularly feted house and it was sold on to someone else and Corb only painted a few murals on the walls. You could argue that it was in a pique of jealousy or you could argue that he was using an influential client to flog his own wares. It’s a pity he didn’t do it more on his own blandness.
I find all that designing everything down to the doorknobs a bit overwhelming. I did like some of her furniture though – the black and chrome sofa]
She wasn’t told the house was for sale and Corbusier also put those huts in the backgarden which horrified her. The house design was also wrongly attributed to him in several publications and based on the programme it seems he did nothing to correct that. -
I saw the program last night and I also thought that it was unfortunate to see the state of the house which Eileen grew up in, in Enniscorthy. It used to be a hospital, (I remember my mother attending there years ago).
Unfortunately there is a Roadstone quarry next door and I think that they bought the property a number of years ago. I’m not sure if it’s protected but I’m a bit afraid that it might end up falling into the quarry if it’s not protected:eek:
I think it’s actually a very imposing structure, even though the program mentioned that Eileen Gray hated it!
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The house in Enniscorthy is Brownswood House and is in private ownership, not owned by the quarry. It is a protected structure. It served as a sanatorium in the 70’s and there was a woeful extension built alongside it. I’m not sure if this is still standing or not, but the house itself, which dates to the late 19th century is currently undergoing renovation as far as I know. (Or it was a couple of years ago) As you say it is a very imposing structure.There was some fantastic brick and stone detailing and a very impressive stairwell in the main entrance hall. It’s set back a good distance off the N11, so it’s not easily seen from the road,but you do catch a glimpse of the roof and upper floors on the right as you come into Enniscorthy from the Wexford side.
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phil wrote:Something tells me he wasn’t the most humble of characters]
Within months, however, and with Badovici’s encouragement, Le Corbusier had begun painting a series of eight murals on the walls of E-1027 (Fernand Léger had painted his first mural on the garden wall of Badovici’s house in Vézelay in 1934). Gray called Le Corbusier’s murals “an act of vandalism.” After the war, in 1949, he published photographs of his “murals at Cap Martin”, without mentioning her. “The villa that I animated with my paintings was very beautiful, white on the interior, and it could have managed without my talents,” he admitted, before claiming that the murals “burst out from dull, sad walls where nothing is happening . . . an immense transformation, a spiritual value introduced throughout.”
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@JB wrote:
The house in Enniscorthy is Brownswood House and is in private ownership, not owned by the quarry. It is a protected structure.
I am delighted to hear that!
I remember running around the grounds as a child and exploring the out houses out the back. They have done a great job on the gatehouse, while was almost falling down back then.
It’s a pity Wexford/ Enniscorthy don’t celebrate its association with Eileen Gray more. I never even knew about it until a few years ago and I live just a couple of miles from Brownswood!
My next Taschen purchase will probably be the book on Eileen Gray! -
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Yeah, you are right, and it was was mentioned in the documentary. There was something beautifully refined about the original Georgian house.
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Which is why it’s rather interesting that she despised such an over-designed and tailored new-build house, executed from scratch to the last detail, while then going on to design numerous highly engineered houses of architectural pretension herself. Perhaps it was just the stodgy textbook mock-Tudor regurgitation she disliked – and what person wouldn’t be sad at the loss of their childhood home, especially such an unassuming characterful pile.
Above all else it was her thinking on what home should be that shone through in this programme (clearly made for an international audience too) – certainly a softer, more palatable approach than le Cor. Oddly we got little information about her own apartment in Paris – it seems to have been a standard rambling affair. Does one require a breather from the excesses of early modernism?
Agreed about the transforming table, wearnicehats – what a piece 🙂
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