Castellar Archives - iDesignWiki

Irish Furniture designer and architect, Eileen Gray was a pioneer of the Modern Architecture and Deco Design Styles; her designs, for too long forgotten – until their resurfacing in the 1960s – are said to have inspired even Le Corbusier.

Image source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eileen_Gray#/media/File:Eileen_Gray.jpg

Shoulders for the giants

Born in an aristocratic Irish-Scottish family,Kathleen Eileen Moray Gray,born the 9th of August 1878, manifested a strong interest in the arts and design from a tender age; under her father’s tutelage, she attended theSlade School of Fine Art,one of the first female students to do so. After becoming fascinated with Art Noveau at the Paris World Fair, she went on to continue her studies at the French capital, beginning to make a name for herself as a designer of lacquered walls and decorative panels, eventually opening her own private gallery where her designs for lamps, tables and other pieces of furniture were displayed. Meeting, through the Salomn d’Autumne, the likes ofGropius,Le Corbusier,Robert Mallet-StevensandJean Badovici(her eventual lover), she’d go on to build her most famous creation,Villa E-1027,designed in accordance with Le Corbusier and theBauhaus‘ theories. However, after her breakup with Badovici and Le Corbusier’s vandalization of eight walls (frescoed, without her consent and, as many believe, out of pettiness from the Swiss-French architect), she’d abandon both the group and her craft.

After sojourning in South France during World War II first and later transferring back to Paris, she grew further isolated, and both the design and architecture would quickly forget about her. However, by1968, an article byJoseph Rykwerton theDomusmagazine would bring the spotlight back on her work, and soon her furniture pieces re-entered production.

Image source:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Queen_Elizabeth_II_and_Eileen_Gray.jpg

After her death, in 1976, the National Museum of Ireland, in Dublin, would acquire her full archive, eventually setting up a permanent exhibit, opening in 2002, while her designs are still being produced. A movie, “The Price of Desire”, detailing her life, came to be in 2015 as well.

Her theories on design and architecture have left an indelible mark on our ideas of modern living standards, with her tubular steel furniture, revolutionary at the time of their creation, still regarded as a classic today. She came to be considered the epitome ofModernismand is the only woman whose name is mentioned in the same breath asLe Corbusier,Mies van der RoheandMarcel Breuer.

To create one must first question everything

-Eileen Gray

What were her major works?

艾琳·格雷的下一个主要有限公司ntribution to design was inarchitecture. Encouraged byLe CorbusierandJ.J.P Oud, she designed two houses in the Alpes Maritimes, one atRoquebrunewhich was built from 1926-1929, and the other atCastellar, built from 1932-1934. Both are considered to be among the purest examples of domestic architecture and interior design of the period. The inter-war years also saw Eileen Gray’s ‘Centre des Vacances’ project, which was shown in Le Corbusier’s Pavilion des Temps Nouveaux at theParis International Exhibitionof 1937.

Sofa designed by Eileen Gray. In the Berardo – Museu Arte Deco in Lisbon

Image source:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EileenGray_sofa.jpg

她的设计风格是独特的working, and Gray developed an opulent, luxurious take on the geometric shapes and industrial materials used at the time, in design and architecture alike.

Le salon de verre (Glass Salon) designed by Paul Ruaud with furniture by Eileen Gray

Image source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eileen_Gray#/media/File:Le_salon_de_verre,_designed_by_Paul_Ruaud,_furniture_by_Eileen_Gray,_for_Madame_Mathieu-Levy_(boutique_J._Suzanne_Talbot),_Paris,_1922.jpg

The high point of her career was her appointment to theRoyal Society of Artin London in 1972 asRoyal Designer to Industry. The Museum of Modern Art added her legendary AdjustableTable E 1027to its permanent design collection in 1978.

Image source:https://www.architonic.com/en/product/classicon-adjustable-table-e-1027/1014841#&gid=1&pid=1

Made from soft leather and tubular steel, theBibendum Chairand its clinically chicE-1027glass and tubular steel table are now as familiar as icons of the International Style as Le Corbusier and Perriand’s classic Grand Confort club chairs.