Eileen Gray - E1027

A house is not a machine to live in. It is the shell of man, his extension, his release, his emanation. Kathleen Eileen Moray Gray (9 August 1878 – 31 October 1976) was an Irish furniture designer and architect and a pioneer of the Modern Movement in architecture. Gray’s first major architectural work was E1027, a modernist villa in the south of France. The name of the house E1027 is code of Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici, 'E' standing for Eileen, '10' Jean, '2' Badovici, '7' Gray. The encoded name was Eileen Gray's way of showing their relationship as lovers at the time when built. “Defence De Rire” –– No Laughing Eileen designed all the furniture specifically for E1027, including her famous Transat chair, tubular steel bedside tale and Bibendum armchair. She also hung a nautical map on the wall of the main room overlaying the words “L’invitation au Voyage” the title of a poem from Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal (1857), as well as “beaux-temps” (good weather) and “vas-y-to