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L'ARCHITECTURE VIVANTE AND ITS EXTRAITS
by
Daniel Lawler
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4. E.1027. MAISON en bord de mer
The extrait dedicated to Eileen Gray
and Jean Badovici's house E.1027 seems
to have caused the
greatest confusion regarding its relationship to l'Architecture
Vivante. Its full title is E.1027. Maison
en bord de mer; it republishes the contents of
the Winter 1929
issue of the review, renumbered, and with new front matter and
was probably designed by Eileen Gray. It is based on a rug she designed for the
house: the blue band in the center resembles the overall shape of the rug, as well
as its color, and the black bull's-eye motif in the upper right hand corner also
derives from it. 29 The lettering varies from the blocky, hand-lettered MAISON EN
BORD DE MER, to the ALBERT MORANCÉ in the contemporary typeface "Egyptian,"
and finally the names of the two architects in an elegant, hand-drawn, abstracted
italic. On the rear cover is the first appearance of the new EAM emblem, based
on the bull's-eye of the front cover (fig. 4.1, plate 5).
This extrait was published in 1930, the year after
its original, but it is often not
recognized as a separate publication.
30
Both Peter
Adam and Caroline Constant,
in their excellent
studies of Eileen Gray, call this publication a "special
issue" of
l'Architecture Vivante, with the implication that
this was the only format in which
t appeared, and that it belonged as such to the
regular run of the review; they
are perhaps following the lead of Susan Strauss in her entry on Badovici in the
Macmillan
Encyclopedia of Architects, who also singles it out as "a special issue,"
the
only one she mentions in her text.
31
Similarly, the Beinecke Library at Yal
University, in
their recent purchase of Peter Eisenman's collection of
avant-garde
architectural books and periodicals, did not give his copy of Maison en bord de mer
a separate call number and catalog entry,
but included it within his mostly com-
plete run of l'Architecture
Vivante. But the original form exists: it has a l'Architecture
Vivante paper cover dated HIVER MCM XXIX; a l'Architecture Vivante title page and
table of contents for both the Autumn
and Winter issues; and a sommaire for
the Winter issue only,
declaring it to be the 7th year, number 26.
32
The phrase
"Maison en bord de
mer" exists in only one place in the review: as a heading for
the list of
plates in the table of contents (it also appears in a similar place in
the
disposable sommaire). That the extrait followed, and was based on, the publication
in the review is
confirmed by several errors it contains. On two of the text pages,
both in the text
itself and in its accompanying drawings, there are references to
page or plate
numbers that have not been corrected, as they have elsewhere, to
correspond to the
new numbering systems. In another case, a reference to a page
number has been
changed, but incorrectly identified as a plate number.
33
There is also a curious discrepancy between this extrait, as
published, and its
appearance in Éditions Albert Morancé
advertising for the series. Their 1932
catalog refers to it as Maison en bord de mer: Aménagement rationnel d'un intérieur
mod-
erne, par Eileen Gray et Jean
Badovici.
34
The subtitle has
been fabricated, appearing
nowhere in the extrait itself, and
no mention is made of the cryptic name E.1027.
Then, in
alladvertising from 1932 until 1937, the extrait was offered under the
title Aménagement rationnel
d'un intérieur moderne: Villa en bord de mer, par Jean
Badovici
et Eileen Gray
.
35
Three things have changed: the exchange
of the title and phan-
tom subtitle, the substitution of"villa" for "maison"; and the order of authorship.
It
is not until the Morancé catalog of 1938 that these are rectified,
returning
to the description presented in the 1932 catalog.
36
The extrait
certainly existed
prior to 1932. This is confirmed by Valdras, but also
by the introduction of the
bull's-eye EAM device, derived
from the E.1027 cover, in the Spring 1932 issue of
l'Architecture Vivante. By this date, however, Gray had ended her relationship
with
Badovici and moved to Castellar, although the two remained friends. Perhaps
Badovicihadbowed to Gray's wishes
concerning the title and authorship of the
extrait, and was
later trying to make his preferences known, or even to assert
his then sole
proprietorship of the house. He might also have foreseen a second
printing with his
version of the title, butthese changes were never made.
A second, later version does exist, with the contents from the original
l'Architecture Vivante fascicule, including the sommaire, but with the cover from the
extrait (fig.
4.2). I first considered that this might be a later marriage, but I have
located six
copies with this arrangement,
37
confirming that they were combined
by the publisher and not a subsequent owner. The
covers of these copies also
differ from the 1930
extrait, in that the lettering on the spine is in a sans-serif
type-
face, which was also used for the spine of the seventh volume of the Le
Corbusier
and P. Jeanneret series.
38
One of the copies also includes an advertisement for
the
extraits pasted to the inside cover; it includes a
listing for the seventh Le Corbusier
volume (but not the later Œuvre plastique), dating it to 1937 or early 1938.
39
"Biblio" 1937: Catalogue français (Paris: Service Bibliographique des Messageries Ha-
chette,
1938), 542.
See, for instance, Hotels de voyageurs
(Paris: Charles Moreau,
1928), or Nouvelles Boutiques
(Paris: Albert Levy,
1929).
The green copy was part of a lot of all seven volumes sold at
auction on 14 May 2009
(Artcurial, sale no. 1567, lot
59).
I would like to thank Caroline Constant for pointing out to
me the similarities between
the portfolio cover and the rug.
Peter Adam,
Eileen
Gray: Architect, Designer (New York: Abrams, 1987), 220. Caroline Constant,
Eileen Gray
(London:
Phaidon, 2000), 93. Adolf K. Placzek, ed., Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architecture, vol. 1 (New York: The Free
Press, 1982), 126.
On page 18 of the extrait, a footnote refers to "p. 33"; this
should have been revised to
"p. 21." Similarly, on page 25, a reference to "PL.
49, 54" in the drawing should have read "PL 24,
29." On page 16, a reference was
revised to read "pl. 17," but should have read "p. 17."
The 1932 advertisement is a loose sheet inserted into l'Architecture Vivante no. 37, automne
1932. Other advertisements are pasted to the inside of the
portfolio covers of the extraits, the
earliest from
1934 or 1935. These appear to have been added as they left
the publisher, rather
than when they were printed, as they sometimes advertise
volumes actually printed at a later
datethan the volume in which they appear.
Copies in the Eisenman Collection at the Beinecke Library and the Frances
Loeb
Library at Harvard University follow this pattern, as does a copy in my own
possession. I have
verbal confirmation of three other similar copies in private
hands as well. The sommaire is absent
in half of these
copies, which I surmise is the state in which those copies were issued.
On the copy at the Frances Loeb Library, the authors' names are omitted from
the
spine, and the sans-serif typeface is shorter and broader. One other copy has
serifed lettering
on the spine.
One additional arrangement is found in the copy from Eileen
Gray's own collection,
donated by her biographer, Peter Adam, to the National Museum of Ireland.
Here, the bulk of
the material is from the original l'Architecture Vivante fascicule: the paper portfolio cover, the som-
maire and its ads, most of the text (including the table
of contents covering two fascicules), and
the plates-but the first twelve pages of
text, numbered5–16 instead of 17–28, are from the
extrait.
The first signature, withthe title page, is missing altogether. Since this originated
from
Gray herself, I suspect that this was cobbled together for her, and not
issued to the public in this
form. This copy is not the one shown by Adam in his
book with Gray's typewritten annotations;
that copy is the fully emended extrait, and is, as far as I can tell, still in Adam's
possession.
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L'ARCHITECTURE VIVANTE AND ITS EXTRAITS
by
Daniel Lawler
*
| |