Filmmaker Beatrice Minger sought to embrace Eileen Gray’s boundary-pushing approach with her new docu-drama about the enigmatic designer’s famous E-1027 house, she tells Dezeen in this interview.
Minger was developing a documentary about modernist architect Le Corbusier when she stumbled upon the remarkable story of the villa E-1027.
“This story is quite well known in design and architecture circles, but not so much to a broader public,” Minger said. “This is a story of patriarchy. Of a man who canceled Eileen’s vision of architecture.”
“You see her in the house”
As she explored Gray, Minger quickly realised that a documentary on her, the complex history of E-1027, and Le Corbusier’s unsolicited painting of the house, would make for a much more interesting film.
The resulting project, E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea, is released in the UK today.
Built between 1926 and 1929 in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, south-east France, E-1027 was the first major architecture project by Gray and is widely regarded as a milestone of modernism.
Gray designed the house to feel both open and efficient, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the Mediterranean Sea.
It has a compact spiral staircase, an open-plan living space, and bright white walls.
Gray – who was primarily known as a furniture designer – created bespoke furniture to blend seamlessly into the rooms.
“The more you know about her, the more you see her in the house,” said Minger. “Every little detail in that house she designed.”
“Every object has its place, but it’s a very mobile space that encourages you to move things around.”
Gray built E-1027 alongside her then-boyfriend, the French-Romanian architect Jean Badovici.
Although there is much debate over how involved Badovici was in the construction of E-1027, its name is a code for their relationship, with E standing for Eileen, 10 for Jean, 2 for Badovici, and 7 for Gray.
After the pair split up, Badovici inherited the house in 1932. At some point between 1938 and 1939, Le Corbusier began visiting.
He decided to paint colourful murals over the blank white walls. When Gray learned of what Le Corbusier had done she was livid, calling it vandalism and a violation of her creation.
She never visited the house again, while Le Corbusier built a cabin just 20 meters from E-1027 to protect and preserve his murals.
With her film, Minger sought to explore modernism through a “female lens” and rediscover it from Gray’s point of view.
“She was a very enigmatic and mysterious interior designer and architect who didn’t care about public image,” said Minger. “She didn’t want to be perceived as a public person.”
“She always did something new”
Not much is known about Gray, who was intensely private, and destroyed many of her personal papers and documents before she died at the age of 98 in October 1976.
“She had no children, there are not many images of her, and Peter Adam – the person who wrote the best autobiography on Gray – died when we started to research the film,” said Minger.
This was in direct contrast to Le Corbusier, who Minger calls one of the “most documented people of the modernist movement” and a “brand”.
Rather than making a straightforward documentary about Gray’s life and achievements, Minger felt it would only be appropriate to take an avant-garde approach, in keeping with the designer’s own work.
“Whether she was working on furniture, carpets, or architecture, she always did something new,” said Minger. “She always pushed boundaries, created something unique and different, and was non-conformist.”
E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea is therefore a mixture of documentary, drama and theatre.
While the film uses archival images and footage, the filmmakers also extensively shot actors on a purpose-built set so they could depict the characters designing, painting and thinking.
“We wanted to construct this abstract space that felt like an illusion,” Minger explained. “We were always looking to blur the boundaries between documentary and fiction.”
“I wanted to create a cinematic experience where we could understand her better. But I didn’t want to get too close because she was so private.”
While writing the film, Minger made sure that every line of dialogue and scene was based in truth and could be linked to something she’d heard, read, or watched on Gray.
After approaching the Conservatoire du littoral, which now owns and runs E-1027, Minger, her actors and director of photography Ramon Giger were able to film at the house on nearly 15 different occasions.
“We were able to show a lot of the house,” said Minger. “Obviously wherever we put the camera it looked beautiful.”
“But it’s still quite a small house and a museum so we had to be careful and not touch the furniture.”
What made Gray unique as an architect was her belief that there is “no house without a person who enters it”, says Minger – and that the person entering should feel they have both changed, and been changed by, the building.
“Every time I entered the house I perceived it differently,” Minger said.
She remembers entering E-1027 on a very hot day, only to immediately be relaxed because it was so cool.
“The air moves through the whole house,” she said. “The view is stunning. You calm down very quickly when you’re in there.”
“It was really painful for her”
Minger also sought to shoot at Cabanon, the summer home that Le Corbusier built directly next to E-1027, but was denied access.
While Minger has her own thoughts on what Le Corbusier did to Gray’s walls, she was conscious that there is much debate over the incident.
“I wanted to be considerate about the fact that whenever you talk about the story you get a different story,” she said.
“People would say, ‘He just did what artists do, he expressed himself.’ To me, there’s a whole narrative and system that backs up the male genius who is allowed to do whatever he wants.”
Whatever the reason for Le Corbusier painting the murals, it made a devastating impact on Gray.
“It was really painful for her,” said Minger. “It erased her whole point of view and expression.”
Since Gray had given ownership of the house to Badovici – who Minger blames nearly as much as Le Corbusier for “betraying his own vision of architecture” – she had no legal grounds to paint back over the walls.
Ultimately, Gray never returned to E-1027. The closest she got was around 1970, just a few years before her death.
“She apparently got the train all the way from Paris to the area,” said Minger. “She walked towards the house, but just couldn’t go and see it. It was too painful.”
With E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea, Minger hopes to have made a permanent reminder of the person who created this modernist landmark, and a timely reminder of how her vision was desecrated.
“There was such a strong emotional connection between her and the house. It was her central vision of architecture. The film is a present to Eileen.”
The images are courtesy of Rise And Shine World Sales.
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