Exhibition “Kasper Akhøj, Welcome (To The Teknival)”

From Friday 2 June to Sunday 7 January, Nouveau Musée National – Villa Sauber: Exhibition “Kasper Akhøj, Welcome (To The Teknival)”.

On the first floor of the Villa Sauber, the NMNM presents an exhibition by artist Kasper Akhøj dedicated to E-1027, Maison en bord de Mer, the summer hideaway house designed by Eileen Gray for Jean Badovici between 1926 and 1929 in Roquebrune Cap-Martin, at a walking distance from the exhibition venue.

E-1027, Maison en bord de Mer

In 1929, aged 51, the artist and designer Eileen Gray completed her first architectural work, responding to a commission made by her friend, the architect Jean Badovici, who wanted a “small refuge” in the south of France. In the footsteps of Robert Mallet-Stevens, who built the Villa Noailles at Hyères between 1923 and 1925, it was at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin—a city adjacent to Monaco—that Eileen Gray designed, built and decorated E-1027, Maison en bord de Mer. Her conception of the dwelling seen as a living organism shows in the views of interiors taken when she was living in E-1027, before she left the seaside house and started work on the villa Tempe a Pailla, on the heights of Castellar.

Some twenty years later, in the April 1948 issue of “L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui”, the famous architect Le Corbusier in his turn published photographs of the villa, or, more precisely, of the murals with which he had covered the walls between 1938 and 1939. The names of Eileen Gray and of the villa itself did not appear in that publication. E-1027 was then ignored for almost 30 years, before re-appearing in the history of modern architecture in the mid-70’s, shortly before Gray’s death. E-1027 is under restoration since 2007.

Welcome (To The Teknival)

Since 2008, Kasper Akhøj has undertaken a research-based work on Eileen Gray’s villa E-1027, documenting the process of its restoration through the use of Gray’s original portfolio. Welcome (To The Teknival) is so far presented as a set of 59 black and white analogue photographs, based on the original illustrations published in 1929 by Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici in the manner of a remake, respecting the perspective and composition of the original photographs.