We want to dedicate  DESIGN STORY to one of the first female architects and designers, Eileen Gray, a feisty, independent woman capable of challenging the conventions of her time head-on.

The story of the Villa E-1027, built in the 1920s, is first and foremost the story of a love born among the rocks and transparent waters of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France.

It was 1926 when Eileen Gray designed Villa E-1027 on the wild stretch of coast chosen by her partner Jean Badovici as their love nest. The name chosen for the villa is a coded promise of love: E stands for Eileen, while the numbers 10-2-7 correspond to the letters J-B-G, the couple’s other initials.

Seen from the outside, the villa shows clean and square profiles of a typical modern building, its whiteness standing out against the lush greenery of the background. An artificial terrace forms the foundation of what is structured as a two-level volume, with a total surface area of ​​120 square meters.

Inside, Eileen Gray’s genius manifests itself in all its strength and originality: “Everyone should be able to feel free and independent” is the guiding principle of the project. Not only does each room have its own balcony with outdoor access, but the fixtures, shutters, and windows are all removable, allowing each guest to modulate and customize the space according to their changing needs. But Eileen doesn’t stop there; she wants every accessory and piece of furniture in the house to be functional, indeed multifunctional, so she designs by herself all the furnishings (including the famous E.1027 coffee table, made of tubular steel, a material she would use extensively, in a certain sense anticipating the Bauhaus paradigm).

After the abrupt breakup, Badovici was left alone in that immaculate box suspended over the rocks. One day, he decided to invite his famous friend Le Corbusier to stay with him. Upon crossing the threshold of the Villa for the first time, Le Corbusier was struck by the building’s ante litteram representation of all five principles of modern architecture he had theorized: the pillars, the open plan, the roof garden, the ribbon windows, and the free façade. Eileen learned that the master had appreciated her work and was delighted, but what she didn’t imagine was that this guest would soon become quite a nuisance, “scuffing” the white walls with his colorful, sexist murals, which brazenly poked fun at Eileen’s bisexuality and her relationship with her ex-partner, Badovici. While painting them, Le Corbu had himself photographed naked, almost as if to emphasize the disfigurement. For the Irish designer, it was a devastating blow, yet another blow to what remained of her great love story: now even the house is no longer hers, it no longer represents her, it is merely the desecrated shell of a betrayal, and for this reason Eileen will never set foot there again.

A painful and thankless fate, but also a tangle of passions so turbulent that it inspired two films, The Price of Desire (2015) and the very recent E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea (2024).

Today, the villa has been restored after years of complete abandonment and can be visited. All the furniture designed by Eileen Gray is still produced today, and you can send a request to MG CASA.