Her designs remain fresh, practical a century on
You may recognize the table fashioned from steel and glass, above right, designed almost a century ago. But do you know much about the designer?
We are thrilled to welcome Toronto-born New York-based architect Jan Greben as our speaker for a presentation of the documentary Gray Matters about the Anglo-Irish modernist designer Eileen Gray (1878-1976) on Sunday, Aug. 20, 12:30 pm at the Revue Cinema. Tickets: $15 on Eventbrite; $18 at the door.
Gray created the metal and glass table for a ship-like holiday house she built on a rocky promontory near Monaco. Bringing her specific sensibility to a design project, she maintained, contrary to her avant-garde contemporaries, that the interior “should not be the incidental result of the façade; it should lead to a complete harmonious, and logical life.”
Gray’s cliff-side dwelling, E-1027, is “one of 100 significant houses in the late Modern period,” according to art history professor Tim Benton, who is also one of the trustees of the organization managing E-1027. “But the interior is one of [the] four most important modern interiors in the world.” (He was quoted in Metropolis architecture magazine.)
Yet, for many years, Gray’s work on E-1027 was attributed to her paramour of the time, Jean Badovici, and even architect Le Corbusier, who defaced the interior walls, painting murals without Gray’s consent. (Ironically, those murals may be one reason the house survived, despite Nazi target practice during the war, followed by years of neglect.)
Over her 80-year career, Gray, who explored many different materials and ideas in her designs, remains best known for her furniture pieces, some of which — like the metal and glass side table — are still being produced today. (See Aram Designs Ltd.)
The Film:
The documentary by director Marco Antonio Orsini was released in 2014. Here is a description from the film’s website: “Gray Matters explores the long, fascinating life and complicated career of architect and designer Eileen Gray, whose uncompromising vision defined and defied the practice of modernism in decoration, design and architecture. Making a reputation with her traditional lacquer work in the first decade of the 20th century, she became a critically acclaimed and sought after designer and decorator in the next before reinventing herself as an architect, a field in which she laboured largely in obscurity. Apart from the accolades that greeted her first building – persistently and perversely credited to her mentor – her pioneering work was done quietly, privately and to her own specifications. But she lived long enough (98) to be re-discovered and acclaimed. Today, with her work commanding extraordinary prices and attention, her legacy, like its creator, remains elusive, contested and compelling.”
About Jan Greben:
Jan holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Toronto and a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University. She has taught Architecture Studio at the New York Institute of Technology for 12 years; developed and taught seminar courses on the architecture of Eileen Gray, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe; and has co-taught Study Abroad programs in France. The publication Eileen Gray: Conversations highlights the work of her seminar students and includes a conversation with architectural historians Caroline Constant and Mary McLeod. Jan is a registered architect.
This is event is one in Back Lane Studios’ series of screenings about Extraordinary Women:
Tickets: $15 on Eventbrite; $18 at the door.