Le Corbusier Vandalized This House. An Artist Is Reclaiming Its Memory
Canadian sculptor and photographer Lorna Bauer is presenting “Maison en Bord de Mer” at New York’s Trotter&Sholer gallery, a project that revisits the legacy of E-1027, the modernist villa built on the French Riviera by Irish designer Eileen Gray with input from her lover, Romanian architect and critic Jean Badovici. The show responds to the long-running controversy over architect Le Corbusier, who painted murals inside the house about a decade after it was built—an intervention Gray called “vandalism” in 1952—and to the way the site’s public narrative has often centered him. Bauer’s works grew out of her 2017 visit to E-1027 and include glass and photographic references to the home’s features, while the villa itself has been renovated in recent years under the care of the French government. The article notes key dates in the villa’s history, including Badovici’s death in 1956, Le Corbusier building cabins next door in 1952, and Le Corbusier’s death while swimming there in 1965, alongside renewed attention to Gray including a 2024 documentary.
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This story was covered in Vandalized Modernism, Creatures With a Warning