Den galna historien bakom Cap Moderne

På andra sidan viken från Monaco, det finns en enastående kultur- och naturplats nu känd som Cap Moderne. Detta okonventionella museum består av Eileen Grays villa E-1027, Le Corbusier's Cabanon, semesterstugor och bar-restaurangen Etoile de Mer (som slutade servera 1984) - alla mytiska arkitektoniska ikoner i omgivningar med enastående naturlig skönhet. Samlingen av mytomspunna byggnader i dess hjärta döptes om Cap Moderne när den fick besökare för första gången 2015.

Showens verkliga stjärna är E-1027, huset som den fantastiska irländska designern Eileen Gray byggde på det rytande tjugotalet. Allt från dess kryptiska namn – med hjälp av positionen i alfabetet för de första bokstäverna i Eileen Grays namn (E, 7) och hennes dåvarande älskare Jean Badovici (10, 2) – till dess historia av att ha blivit förstörd av väggmålningar som Corbusier målade ( medan naken) på dess väggar, ett mord och försummad övergivenhet, gör detta till det mest gåtfulla av Frankrikes många modernistiska hus.

Här är den, med i Louis Vuittons kampanj 2023:

Historien bakom Cap Moderns E-1027-hus

In 2009, a chocolate-leather Dragon armchair by the Irish furniture designer Eileen Gray sold at Christie’s in Paris for $28.3 million, shattering the record for 20th-century decorative art. Those in the know were always aware of her massive but somewhat unrecognized talent, but the auction officially –and finally– crowned Gray as one of the immortals of modern design.

Hon flyttade till Paris 1902 och utmärkte sig som en pionjär när det gäller användningen av lacken som var så avgörande för art déco-rörelsen. På 1920-talet införlivade hon krom, stål och glas i sina mönster samtidigt med sina kamrater Marcel Breuer och Mies van der Rohe. Men det är Le Corbusier, her contemporary and onetime friend, with whom Gray’s history on the Cote d’Azur is most intertwined.

Gray och hennes älskare, rumänsk kritiker Jean Badovici, were looking to build a beach-side love nest on the Cote d’Azur, and here Gray found the perfect secluded site. From 1926-1929 — without any clue that she was creating a masterpiece years ahead of its time — Gray oversaw every detail of construction of the house, including wrangling the mules that hauled materials up and down the hills to the site.

Set on a gentle slope saturated in Mediterranean sunshine and thick with pines, the house was the pinnacle of modernism: tiered with squared-off planes of white, floor to ceiling windows, sliding doors and open spaces making full use of the sea and sky. It is a marvel of elegance and simplicity, with right-angled roofs and walls fashioned from white concrete, the kind of house that by now we may have seen before, but which no one but Gray could have dreamed of in 1929.

Hon döpte den till E-1027, en numerisk kod: E för Eileen, IO för J som i Jean, 2 för B som i Badovici, och 7 för G som i Gray, utarbetad som en hyllning till deras sammanflätade liv.

It is a sheer drop past olive trees and rosemary bushes to the cliffs below. Gray furnished it with her own designs, adding ingenious touches such as a black tiled swimming pool that she filled with sand and where she relaxed for cocktail hour.

Stiga på Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (känd som Le Corbusier), who visited Badovici and Gray often at their seaside idyll. Whether he was or was not threatened by her talent, most scholars agree that Le Corbusier was obsessed with Gray and her triumphant E-1027.

He was so jealous, in fact, that in 1938, after the bisexual Gray split with Badovici and returned to loving women, Le Corbusier took it upon himself to paint –some say defile– the interior walls with eight garish murals depicting charged lesbian imagery. To add to the insult, he took photos of himself doing so, wearing nothing but his trademark glasses. When she heard about this brazen act of disrespect, Gray was horrified and vowed never to return.

But Le Corbusier continued to visit. In 1951, Le Corbusier arranged with the owners of the cafe L’Etoile de Mer (in the lot adjacent to E-1027) to construct a beach hut connected to their restaurant.

Soon, he added a hyper-efficient guesthouse next door to the property. At E-1027, the drama turned to tragedy. Nazi soldiers looted the house and used it for target practice during World War II; in 1996, its morphine-addicted owner was murdered there. The house was abandoned and left for dead, battered from disrepair, appropriated and damaged by squatters, junkies, and drifters.

Finally, in 2000, a group of concerned conservationists and the local landmarks commission stepped in to rescue one of the country’s most distinct architectural treasures from the wrecking ball.

Historien bakom Cabanon le Corbusier

Whatever your theory of Le Corbusier’s role in Eileen Gray’s disappearing into decades of obscurity, his little Cabanon is ingenious, a masterstroke of high style and low maintenance, nestled among the citrus as if house and trees were joined at the roots.

Corbu believed that a house should be a machine for living in, and this one is a feat of efficiency, where the bedroom, dining table, chairs that double as storage boxes, bathroom, and cabinets either have their dedicated corner or disappear into the walls of this tiny, wooden space.

Everywhere are Cubist-looking bright blue, electric green, and yellow murals that Corbu loved to render, the architect most at home in another medium. The miniature restaurant connected to the house by a door is chic, and every corner of the room, from the rounded bar lined with vintage carafes and painted with fish, to the tiny table in the corner, has the patina of wear and style.

Le Corbusier spent many peaceful holidays at Le Cabanon, and each time he walked down the steps to jump in the waves, or back up to resume his painting, he passed by E-1027, a couple of arm’s lengths away. One wonders what his memories were of the place, or of Eileen Gray, or if he even chose to access them. Le Corbusier was said to truly admire his former neighbor’s work, but it’s hard to imagine what possessed him to appropriate the walls of a villa that did not belong to him.

Some have said that later, Corbu may have taken credit for some of Gray’s design. Lanie Goodman doesn’t sugar coat it. “Corbu’ s murals are an unquestionable act of sabotage, whether he was conscious of what he was doing or not,” she says. “As Gray’s former friend and mentor, he was certainly not very invested in her success.”

Certainly, he owed her some gratitude for drawing him to this lush corner of the Riviera in the first place, at least while he lived. In August 1965, he drowned while swimming in the water at the foot of the hill, on the beach just below Le Cabanon and E-1027.

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