E.1027 saved December 7, 2000 Around two years ago Herman and Hans Hertzberger launched a plea for help in a number of professional journals and on ArchiNed. On visiting Eileen Gray's Villa E.1027 in Roquebrune in France, they discovered it was in deplorable condition. Their plea aimed to draw the world's attention to the pending disaster in the hope of turning the tide. Those efforts were not in vain. The condition of E.1027, summer 1999 E.1027 was the first villa completed by Eileen Gray (1878-1976). Gray worked on the house from 1924 to 1929 together with Jean Badovici. E.1027 can be considered a prototype: for Gray it served as a research project into modern life. Gray designed the villa, garden, and interior as one coherent work. Villa E.1027 has since become one of the icons of an optimistic modernism. In the late 1930s Le Corbusier added some murals to the house, very much to the displeasure of Gray, who saw this as a destruction of her work. After the death of Eileen Gray in 1976, the house was sold. Interior from the 1920s; the furniture was sold in 1991. In 1991 the then owner of the villa sold some of its original contents in order to fund essential repair work. Unfortunately he was to die before restoration got under way. The family then spent the next four years negotiating the sale of E.1027. As a result of a joint action by the authorities in Roquebrune Cap Martin and 'Le Conservatoire du Littoral' (a French government organisation), the house was purchased in October 1999 and subsequently declared a national monument by the French government. The architect Renaud Barrès will now team up with M. Pierre-Antoine Gatier (French government architect) to restore the house to its original condition, including the paintings by Le Corbusier. After some initial emergency work and additions such as an alarm system, roof repairs and temporary structural alterations, the architects have started to examine the foundations and structure of the villa. Once this study has been completed, they will draw up plans for restoration. Work on site is expected to start in the summer of 2001, and the cost is estimated at around one million dollars. It is intended to turn Villa E.1027, as well as Le Corbusier's house and the other modernist part of Cap Martin, into a research centre into 'Modernism' and to open it to the public. Anybody who actively wants to help the efforts to restore E.1027 can become a member of the 'Association for the safekeeping of the Eileen Gray and Le Corbusier site in Roquebrune Cap Martin'. The association can be contacted by e-mail: ass.eg-lc@mageos.com Late news: Another icon of the same period, the Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht, has been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. Gerrit Rietveld designed this house in 1924 for Ms Schröder-Schräder. The house is considered to be embodiment of the ideas of De Stijl. Rietveld was on the staff of De Stijl (1917), a magazine edited by Theo van Doesburg, among whose other collaborators were Piet Mondriaan and J.J.P. Oud. Previous articles about E.1027 on ArchiNed: Villa E.1027 by Eileen Gray in disrepair: Part 2 (February, 1999) Villa E 1027 one year later (September, 1999) ArchiNed transl. Billy Nolan