Known for his famous frontal views of architecture and his Melting series, which merge views of Toyota factories with iconic buildings in Chandigarh, Algiers, and Brasilia, Stéphane Couturier questions the notion of a synthesis of the arts in this new series, bringing together the two figures who have influenced this villa: Eileen Gray and Le Corbusier.
It was in 1926 that Irish designer Eileen Gray and architect Jean Badovici conceived this project, conceived as an architectural manifesto. Based on a code uniting their respective names (E for Eileen, 10 for the J in Jean, the tenth letter of the alphabet, 2 for the B in Badovici, and 7 for the G in Gray), the villa was named E-1027.
Ten years after its completion, the incredible history of the site unfolded. In 1938 and 1939, Le Corbusier unashamedly appropriated the walls: “I also have a furious desire to dirty the walls: ten compositions are ready, enough to smear everything.” An addition recanted by Eileen Gray, who never returned to the villa.
Through photography, Stéphane Couturier today merges eras, giving pride of place to the play of transparencies, the collision of architecture with the natural world, Le Corbusier’s frescoes blending with the details of the furniture designed by Eileen Gray.
The resulting duality allows for a more complex layering of reality, to express this new reality of the world and of things: movement, instability, the ephemeral, between document and fiction.
The Eileen Gray villa becomes osmosis: E-1027+123 (12 for the L in Le and 3 for Corbusier’s C).
By merging a photograph of Eileen Gray’s architecture with one of the murals Le Corbusier painted in the villa, we are invited to a kind of “reconciliation of the arts.”
Stéphane Couturier – Eileen Gray / Le Corbusier [E-1027+123]
Montmajour Abbey
July 7 – October 5, 2025
10:00 AM – 6:15 PM
