Eileen Gray and E-1027: A Modernist House on the Riviera

Eileen Gray was for decades a footnote in histories of modern architecture — remembered, if at all, as a furniture designer whose seaside house happened to carry murals by Le Corbusier. That reputation has been comprehensively revised. Her house E-1027, on the Mediterranean coast at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, is now recognised as one of the most thoughtful buildings of early modernism: a house designed not as a manifesto but around the daily life of the people in it.

This article looks at Gray’s path from lacquer and furniture to architecture, explains how E-1027 works as a building, and considers what her approach offers designers today.

Who Eileen Gray was

Gray was born in Ireland in 1878 and died in Paris on 31 October 1976, aged 98. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London before settling in Paris in the early twentieth century. There she learned the demanding craft of lacquer work, which involves building up many thin coats, each dried and polished, over long periods. Her lacquered screens and furniture attracted wealthy clients, and in the 1920s she ran a gallery selling her own designs.

Lacquer taught her patience, precision and an intimate understanding of surfaces. Her furniture moved steadily from luxurious one-off pieces towards modern materials such as tubular steel, glass and cork, and towards adaptable, multi-purpose designs. Architecture was the next step. Encouraged by the architect and critic Jean Badovici, her partner at the time, she taught herself to design buildings in the mid-1920s, without formal architectural training.

E-1027: the house and its name

E-1027 was designed between 1926 and 1929 by Gray in collaboration with Badovici, on a steep rocky site above the sea. The name is a code: E for Eileen, 10 for J (Jean), 2 for B (Badovici) and 7 for G (Gray), using the positions of the letters in the alphabet. The house was owned by Badovici, and Gray lived there only for a few years before building a second house for herself.

It is a compact, white, two-level building with a flat roof terrace, set on slender supports on its seaward side so that it seems to hover above the slope. Long horizontal windows look out to the sea, and a terrace with a canvas awning extends the living room outdoors. In many respects it uses the vocabulary of Le Corbusier’s “five points” — pilotis, a free plan, horizontal windows, a roof terrace and a free façade — but Gray applied them very differently.

Designing for occupation, not for the image

Gray criticised the more doctrinaire side of modernism. In an essay published with Badovici about the house, she argued that external form should not take precedence over the interior, and that a house must respond to the needs of the people living in it — their movement through the day, their need for both company and privacy, their comfort in heat and light.

At E-1027 that thinking shows up in hundreds of small decisions. Circulation is planned so that guests and residents can move without crossing each other’s paths. The living room can be subdivided with screens and curtains. Beds are placed to catch morning light; reading lamps are built in where they are needed. Wardrobes and cupboards open on more than one side, and storage is designed for specific items. Shutters and folding windows let the occupants tune light and ventilation precisely, sliding and pivoting to admit breeze while excluding direct sun.

This is environmental design at the scale of the room. In a hot Mediterranean summer, the ability to shade, ventilate and enclose spaces flexibly determines whether a house is comfortable. Gray’s approach is close to what we would now call passive design, embedded in the joinery and fittings rather than in mechanical systems — a lesson that translates well to tropical architecture in places like Singapore.

Furniture as architecture

Gray designed most of the furniture for E-1027 herself, and many pieces are inseparable from the house. The best known is the adjustable side table that bears the house’s name: a tubular steel frame with a glass top, whose height can be changed so that it can slide over a bed and be used for breakfast or reading. Other pieces include the Bibendum armchair, built of stacked padded rolls, and various folding and pivoting tables and screens.

The furniture often does work that walls or partitions might otherwise do: screens divide space, cabinets act as room dividers, fold-down surfaces appear when needed. Architecture and furniture form a single system. This is a long way from the image of the modern house as an empty white box, and closer to the integrated, built-in approach found in Japanese houses and in much good minimalist interior design.

Structure and construction

E-1027 is a small reinforced-concrete house with rendered walls. The supports on the seaward side lift the main floor above the sloping site, reducing excavation and allowing the garden and terraces to flow beneath and around the building. The flat roof acts as a terrace. None of this is structurally remarkable by modern standards, but on a steep coastal site in the 1920s it required care: foundations on rock, exposure to salt-laden air and a building that had to resist the sea climate.

That exposure later became a serious problem. After decades of changing ownership and neglect, the house was in a severely decayed state, with its fabric, fittings and finishes badly damaged. Salt air is particularly hard on reinforced concrete, accelerating corrosion of the reinforcement and spalling of the cover — issues we discuss in our article on spalling concrete. Any restoration of a coastal modernist building has to deal with that fundamental durability question before it can address appearance.

Le Corbusier and the murals

Le Corbusier admired E-1027 and visited often. In 1938 and 1939 he painted a series of murals on its walls, without Gray’s agreement. Gray, who had by then left the house, regarded them as an act of vandalism against a design whose white walls and careful compositions had been deliberate. Le Corbusier later built his own small holiday cabin, the Cabanon, nearby.

For many years the murals helped obscure Gray’s authorship, as visitors and writers attributed the house’s qualities to Le Corbusier. The episode is now part of a wider reassessment of how women’s contributions to early modern architecture were overlooked.

Restoration and legacy

In 1999 the house was acquired by the Conservatoire du littoral, the French public body that protects coastal land. After preliminary work and a long restoration, coordinated from 2014 by the association Cap Moderne, the house has been returned as closely as possible to its 1929 state and opened to visitors, as part of a site that also includes Le Corbusier’s Cabanon.

Eileen Gray’s second house, Tempe à Pailla at Castellar, inland from Menton, was built in the early 1930s for her own use and applies the same ideas on a tighter budget. Together, the two houses make a clear case: modern architecture can be precise, light and economical while still being organised around how people actually live. For homeowners and designers, that means treating storage, shading, ventilation and furniture as part of the design from the start. If you are planning a renovation that integrates built-in elements with structural changes, our structural engineering consultancy can advise.

Frequently asked questions

What is E-1027?

E-1027 is a modernist house at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin on the French Riviera, designed between 1926 and 1929 by Gray with Jean Badovici. Its name encodes their initials using the positions of letters in the alphabet.

Did Eileen Gray train as an architect?

No. Gray trained in fine art at the Slade School in London and then in lacquer work in Paris. She taught herself architecture in the mid-1920s, with encouragement from Jean Badovici.

Why did Le Corbusier paint murals at E-1027?

Le Corbusier admired the house and painted murals there in 1938 and 1939, without Gray’s consent. Gray regarded the murals as vandalism of her design, and the episode long obscured her authorship of the house.

Can you visit E-1027?

Yes. The house is owned by the Conservatoire du littoral and, after restoration coordinated by the association Cap Moderne, it can be visited as part of a site that also includes Le Corbusier’s Cabanon. Visits are usually by guided tour.

Renovating a home and want built-in design and structural changes considered together? Talk to our consultancy or get in touch.