Exhibition: Eileen Gray. E.1027, Arte Total

Docomomo International is trilled to share that it is once again supporting a edition of the exhibition “Eileen Gray. E.1027, Arte Total”. This time present at Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea (MNAC) in Lisbon, its opening will take place next Saturday 27th November at 15H30 with a Roundtable and followed at 17H00 by a formal inauguration ceremony
The exhibition will then be open for visits from 28th November 2021 until 27th February 2022.

This will be the fifth edition of the exhibition initially designed for the Mebane Hall in Austin, Texas (2017), and which has already been at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin (2019), at Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade do Porto (2019) and the Basque Architecture Institute in San Sebastián, emerging now as a moment of assessment after five years of work on this project.

Curated by Carolina Leite, Wilfried Wang and Peter Adam (deceased), several entities are involved in its organization besides the MNAC, namely The University of Texas at Austin, O’Neil Ford Chair in Architecture, Euskadiko Arkitektura Institutua, the Faculty of Architecture of University of Porto, the Center for the Study of Architecture and Urbanism, Hoidn Wang Partner, Berlim, the Coletivo de Arquitectos Krafna, Porto, and Docomomo International.

In this edition in Lisbon, will be presented as well several contents that enable a look inside the extensive research process that resulted in this exhibition and that highlight its importance. In the 1:1 scale master bedroom installation, of the Villa E.1027,  visitors will be able to directly experience the synthesis of spatial proportions, materials, colors and pieces of furniture, thus gaining an immediate impression of the architectural ideas of this unduly neglected pioneer of the Modern Movement that the Anglo-Irish architect Eileen Gray (1878-1976) was.

Located on the rocky slope of the Côte d’Azur at Roquebrune Cap Martin, the Villa E.1027 was designed and built by Eileen Gray between 1926 and 1929 an elongated white holiday home, being it one of her most iconic modernist projects. “At the age of 52, this was her first foray into the world of architecture, carried out with the support of her then-partner Jean Badovici, editor of the avant-garde magazine L’ Architecture Vivante. For Gray, E.1027 more than the opportunity to apply new spatial concepts, would become a manifesto, revisited in her subsequent projects, for which she conceived not only the architecture, but also almost all objects and furniture pieces – for a total work of art represented in this exhibition at a 1:1 scale.”  Thus, the exhibition reproduces all the elements that make up the main bedroom of the Villa E.1027.

The opening event will have two main moments. First at 15H30 will take place a roundtable (in the lobby of MNAC), that counts with the presence of the curators along with national and international guests. Moderated by Carolina Leite (Porto), will be discussed central aspects of the work of Eileen Gray and her contribution to the development of modern design and architecture by Ana Tostões (Lisbon), Carlos Machado e Moura (Porto), Rosamund Diamound (London) and Wilfried Wang (Berlin).

  • Genius versus Envy: E.1027 as an experiment – Wilfried Wang
  • Eileen Gray and Marcel Duchamp – Rosamund Diamond
  • Sliding folding window. Eileen Gray. Building views – Carlos Machado e Moura
  • Eileen Gray, a modern Pioneer – Ana Tostões

It is then followed by the formal opening ceremony at 17H00.

For more information about the exhibition please visit the MNAC’s website.

Roundtable poster