War on Architecture: E.

1027
Author(s): Beatriz Colomina
Source: Assemblage, No. 20, Violence, Space (Apr., 1993), pp. 28-29
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3181684 .
Accessed: 21/06/2014 16:44

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Assemblage.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.58 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 16:44:01 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

E. 1027. A modernwhite house is perchedon
the rocks,a hundredfeet above the Mediterra-
nean sea, in a remote place, in Roquebruneat
Cap Martin.The site is "inaccessibleand not
overlookedfrom anywhere."No roadleads to
this house. It was designed and built by Eileen
Grayfor JeanBadoviciand herselfbetween 1926
and 1929. She named the house E.1027: E for
Eileen, 10 for J (the tenth letter of the alpha-
bet), 2 for B and 7 for G. They both lived there
most of the summermonths until Graybuilt her
own house in Castellarin 1934. After the death
of Badoviciin 1956, the house was sold to the
Swiss architectMarieLouise Schelbert.She
found the wallsriddledwith bullet holes. The
house had clearlybeen the site of some consid-
erableviolence. In a 1969 letter, she comments
on the state of the house: "Corbudid not want
anythingrepairedand urgedme to leave it as it
is as a reminderof war."But what kind of war?
Most obviously,it was World War II. The bullet
holes are wounds from the Germanoccupation.
But what violence is there to the house before
the bullets, and even before the inevitablerela-
tionship of modernarchitectureto the military?
And anyway,to startwith, what is Le Corbusier
doing here?What bringshim to this isolated
spot, this remote house that will eventuallybe
the site of his own death?
"Asa young man he had traveledin the Balkans
and the near East and had made sketchesof
strange,inaccessibleplaces and scenes. It was
perhapsthrougha natural,anti-romanticreac-
tion of maturitythat later, as a Purist,he pro-
posed to paint what was duplicableand
near-at-hand."(James T. Soby) We will have to
go back to Le Corbusier'searliertravels,to the
"strange,inaccessibleplaces and scenes"that he
had "conquered"throughdrawing.At the very
least, to Le Corbusier'strip to Algiersin the
Springof 1931. Firstencounterin what will be-
come a long relationshipto this city, or in Le
Corbusier'swords:"twelveyearsof uninter-
ruptedstudy of Algiers."By all accounts, this
study begun with his drawingof Algerian
women. He said later that he had been "pro-
foundlyseduced by a type of woman particularly
well built"of which he made many nude stud-
ies. He also acquireda big collection of colored
postcardsrepresentingnakedwomen sur-
roundedby accoutrementsfrom the Oriental
bazaar.Jeande Maisonseul(laterthe directorof
the Musee Nationaldes BeauxArts d'Alger),
who as an eighteen yearold boy had guided Le
Corbusierthroughthe Casbahwill later recall
their tour:"Ourwanderingsthroughthe side
streetsled us at the end of the day to the rue
Kataroudjiwherehe [Le Corbusier]was fasci-
nated by the beauty of two young girls,one
Spanishand the other Algerian.They brought
us up a narrowstairwayto their room;there he
sketchedsome nudes on-to my amazement-
some schoolbookgraphpaperwith coloredpen-
cils; the sketchesof the Spanishgirllying both
alone on the bed and beautifullygroupedto-
gether with the Algerianturnedout accurate
and realistic;but he said that they were verybad
and refusedto show them." Le Corbusierfilled
three notebooksof sketches in Algierswhich he
Beatriz
This content downloaded from 185.2.32.58 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 16:44:01 PM
Waron Architecture:E.1027
later claimed were stolen from his atelierin
Paris.But Ozenfant denies it, sayingthat Le
Corbusierhimself either destroyedthem or hid
them, consideringthem a "secretd'atelier."The
Algeriansketchesand postcardsappearto be a
ratherordinaryinstance of the ingrainedmode
of a fetishistic appropriationof women, of the
East, of "the other."But Le Corbusier,as Samir
Rafiand Stanislausvon Moos have noted,
turned this materialinto preparatorystudies for
a projectedmonumental figurecomposition,
"the plans for which seem to have preoccupied
Le Corbusierduringmany years,if not his entire
life." (von Moos)
From the months immediatelyfollowinghis re-
turn fromAlgiersup to his death, Le Corbusier
seems to have made hundredsand hundredsof
sketcheson yellow tracingpaperby layingit over
the originalsketchesand retracingthe contours
of the figures.Ozenfant believed that Le
Corbusierhad redrawnhis own sketcheswith
the help of photographsor postcards.He also
exhaustivelystudied Delacroix'sfamous paint-
ing Femmesd'Alger,producinga seriesof
sketchesof the outlines of the figuresin this
painting,divested of their "exoticclothing"and
the "surroundingdecor."Soon the two projects
merged,he modified the gesturesof Delacroix's
figures,graduallymakingthem correspondto
the figuresin his own sketches.He said that he
would have called the final composition
"Femmesde la Casbah."But, in fact, he never
finished it. He kept redrawingit. That the draw-
ing and redrawingof these imagesbecame a life
time obsession indicates that something was at
stake.This becomes even more obviouswhen in
1963-4,shortlybefore his death, Le Corbusier,
unhappywith the visible aging of the yellow
tracingpaper,copies a selection of 26 drawings
onto transparentpaperand symptomatically,for
someone who kept everything,burnsthe rest.
But the processof drawingand redrawingthe
"Femmesde la Casbah"reachedits most in-
tense, if not hysterical,moment when Le
Corbusier'sstudies found their way into a mural
that he completed in 1938 in E.1027. Le
Corbusierreferredto the muralas Sous les
pilotis or Graffited Cap Martin, (it is also some-
times labeled "ThreeWomen.") Accordingto
Schelbert:"LeCorbusierexplainedto his
friendsthat 'Badou'was depicted on the right,
his friendEileen Grayon the left; the outline of
the head and the hairpieceof the sitting figure
in the middle, he claimed, was 'the desired
child, which was neverborn."'This extraordi-
28
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
naryscene, a defacement of Gray'sarchitecture
and perhapseven an effacement of her sexuality
since, her relationshipto Badovicinotwithstand-
ing, Graywas openly gay (but inasmuchas
Badoviciis here representedas one of the three
women, the muralmay revealas much as it con-
ceals), is clearlya "theme for a psychiatrist,"as
Le Corbusier'sVersune architecturesaysof the
nightmareswith which people invest their
houses. Particularlyif we also take into account
Le Corbusier'sobsessiverelationshipto this
house as manifest-and this is only one ex-
ample-in his quasi-occupationof the site after
World War II, when he built a smallwooden
shack,the "Cabanon,"for himself at the very
limits of the adjacentproperty,rightbehind
Eileen Gray'shouse. He occupied and con-
trolledthe site by overlookingit, the cabin being
little more than an observationplatform,a sort
of "watchdoghouse."The impositionof this ap-
propriatinggaze is even more brutalif we re-
member that Eileen Grayhad chosen the site
because it was, in PeterAdam'swords,"inacces-
sible and not overlookedfrom anywhere."But
the violence of this occupationhas alreadybeen
establishedwhen Le Corbusierpainted the mu-
ralsin this house (therewere eight altogether)
without the permissionof Eileen Gray,who had
alreadymoved out. She consideredit an act of
vandalism,indeed, as Adam has put it, "it was a
rape.A fellow architect,a man she admired,had
without her consent defaced her design."
The defacementof the house went hand in hand
with the effacementof Grayas an architect.
When Le Corbusierpublishedthe muralsin his
Oeuvrecomplete(1946) and in L'Architecture
d'aujourd'hui(1948), Eileen Gray'shouse is re-
ferredto as "ahouse in Cap-Martin,"her name is
not even mentioned. Le Corbusierwill end up,
lateron, getting credit for the design of the
house and even for some of its furniture.Still to-
day the confusioncontinueswith manywriters
attributingthe house to Badovici,or at best, to
Badoviciand Gray,and some still suggestingthat
Le Corbusierhad collaboratedon the project.
Even more sad, Eileen Gray'sname does not fig-
ure, even as footnote, in most historiesof mod-
ern architecture,includingthe most recent,and
ostensiblycriticalones.) "Whata narrowprison
you have built for me overa numberof years,
and particularlythis yearthroughyourvanity,"
Badoviciwroteto Le Corbusierin 1949 about
the whole episode (in a letter that Adamthinks
may have been dictatedby Grayherself).Le
Corbusierrepliedin a waythat makesit clear
that he is replyingto Gray:"Youwant a state-
ment fromme based on my worldwideauthority
to show-if I correctlyunderstandyourinner-
most thoughts-to demonstrate'the qualityof
pureand functionalarchitecture'which is mani-
fested by you in the house at Cap Martin,and
has been destroyedby my pictorialinterventions.
OK, you send me some photographicdocuments
of this manipulationof purefunctionalism....
Also send some documentson Castellar,this U-
boat of functionalism;then I will spreadthis de-
bate in frontof the whole world."Now Le
Corbusierwas threateningto carrythe battle
fromthe house into the newspapersand archi-
tecturalperiodicals.But his public position com-
pletelycontradictedwhat he had expressedpri-
vately.In 1938, the same yearhe will paint the
muralGraffitea Cap Martin,Le Corbusierhad
writtena letter to Eileen Gray,afterspending
some daysin E. 1027 with Badovici,wherenot
only does he acknowledgeher sole authorship
but also how much he likes the house:"Iam so
happyto tell you how much those few daysspent
in yourhouse have made me appreciatethe rare
spiritwhich has dictated all the dispositions,in-
side and outside, and given to the modernfurni-
ture-the equipment-such dignifiedform,so
charming,so full of spirit."
Why then did Le Corbusiervandalizethe very
house he loved?Did he think the muralswill en-
hance it? Certainlynot. Le Corbusierhad re-
peatedlystated that the role of the muralin
architectureis to "destroy"the wall, to demate-
rializeit. In a letter to VladimirNekrassovin
1932, he writes:"Iadmit the muralnot to en-
hance a wall,but on the contrary,as a means to
violentlydestroythe wall, to remove from it all
sense of stability,of weight, etc." The muralfor
Le Corbusieris a weapon againstarchitecture,a
bomb. But "whythen to paint on the walls...at
the riskof killingarchitecture?,"he asksin the
same letter, and then answers:"It is when one is
pursuinganothertask, that of telling stories."So
what then is the storythat he so urgentlyneeds
to tell with Grafittea Cap Martin?
We will have to go back once more to Algiers.In
fact, Le Corbusier's complimentaryletter to
Eileen Gray,sent from Cap Martinon 28/4/38,
wearsthe letter head: "HotelAletti Alger."Le
Corbusier'sviolationof Eileen Gray'shouse and
historyis consistent with his fetishizationof Al-
gerianwomen. One might even arguethat the
child in this muralreconstitutesthe missing
(maternal)phallus,whose absence, Freudar-
gues, organizesfetishism. In these terms, the
endless drawingand redrawingis the scene of a
violent substitutionthat in Le Corbusierwould
seem to requirethe house, domestic space, as
prop.Violence is organizedaroundor through
the house. In both circumstances(Algiersor
Cap Martin)the scene startswith an intrusion,
the carefullyorchestratedoccupationof a house.
But the house is in the end effaced (erasedfrom
the Algiers'sdrawings,defaced at Cap Martin).
Significantly,Le Corbusierdescribesdrawingit-
self as the occupation of a "stranger'shouse." In
his last book, Creationis a Patient Search,he
writes:"Byworkingwith our hands, by drawing,
we enter the house of a stranger,we are enriched
by the experience,we learn."Drawing,as has of-
ten been noted, playsa crucialpartin Le
Corbusier'sprocessof "appropriation" of the ex-
teriorworld.He repeatedlyopposes his tech-
nique of drawingto photography:"When one
travelsand workswith visualthings-architec-
ture, paintingor sculpture-one uses one's eyes
and draws,so as to fix deep down in one's expe-
riencewhat is seen. Once the impressionhas
been recordedby the pencil, it staysfor good-
entered, registered,inscribed.The camerais a
tool for idlers,who use a machine to do their
seeing for them." Clearly,it is statements such
as this that have gained Le Corbusierthe repu-
tation of havinga phobiafor the camera-de-
spite the crucialrole of photographyin his work.
But what is the specific relationbetween pho-
tographyand drawingin Le Corbusier?
This content downloaded from 185.2.32.58 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 16:44:01 PM
The sketchesof the Algerianwomen were not
only redrawingsof live models but also
redrawingsof postcards.One could even argue
that the constructionof the Algerianwomen in
French postcards,widelydiffused at the time,
would have informedLe Corbusier'slive draw-
ings, in the same way that, as Zeynep Qelik
notes, Le Corbusierpreciselyreproducesin his
physicalentranceto foreigncities (Istanbulor
Algiers,for example), the imagesof these cities
constructedby postcardsand tourist guides. In
these terms, not only did "he knewwhat he
wanted to see," as Qelik says,but he sawwhat
he had alreadyseen (in pictures).He "enters"
those pictures.He inhabitsthe photographs.
The redrawingsof the Femmede Algiersare also
more likelyto have been realized,as von Moos
points out, from postcardsand reproductions
than from the originalpaintingin the Louvre.
So what, then, will be the specific role of the
photographicimage as such in the fetishistic
scene of the "Femmed'Algiers"project?
The fetish is alwaysabout "presence,"writes
VictorBurgin,"andhow many times have I been
told that photographs'lackpresence,'that
paintingsare to be valuedbecauseof theirpres-
ence!"Clearlythis separationbetween painting
and photographyis what organizesthe domi-
nant understandingof Le Corbusier'srelationto
photography.What these accounts seem to ig-
nore is that here the drawing,the hand-crafted
artisticmeditation, is done "after"the photo-
graph:the art reproduction,the postcard,the
photograph?
In fact, the whole mentalityof the "Femmesde
la Casbah"drawingsis photographic.Not only
are they made from photographs.They are de-
veloped accordingto a repetitiveprocesswhere
the images are systematicallyreproducedon
transparentpaper,the gridof the originalgraph
paperallowingthe image to be enlargedto any
scale. This photographicsensibilitybecomes
most obviouswith the muralsat Cap Martin.
Traditionally,they have been understoodas
paradigmof Le Corbusierthe painter,the crafts-
man detached from mechanicalreproduction,
an interpretationto which Le Corbusierhimself
has contributedwith the circulationof that fa-
mous photographof him, naked,workingat one
of the murals.(Do you realizethat this is the
only nudist image of him that we know?That it
had to be here, in this scene, is in itself telling).
But what is normallyomitted is that Graffitea
Cap Martinwas not conceived on the wall itself.
Le Corbusierused an electric projectorto en-
largethe image of a small drawingonto the
2.50m x 4m white wall wherehe etched the mu-
ral in black.
[They say that, in using black,Le Corbusierwas
thinkingabout Picasso'sGuernicaof the yearbe-
fore, and that Picasso,in his turn, was so im-
pressedwith the muralat Cap Martinthat it
promptedhim to do his own versionsof the
Femmesd'Alger.Apparently,he drewDelacroix's
paintingfrom memoryand was "frappe"to find
out later that the figurehe had painted in the
middle, lying down, with her legs crossed,was
not in Delacroix.(Rafi). It was, of course,
Graffittea Cap Martinthat he remembered,the
recliningcrossed-leggedwomen (invitingbut in-
accessible) Le Corbusier'ssymptomaticrepre-
sentation of Eileen Gray.But if Le Corbusier's
muralhad so impressedhim, how come Picasso
29
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
chose not to see that a swastikawas inscribed
into the chest of the woman on the right?The
swastikamay be yet one more sign of Le
Corbusier'spoliticalopportunism.(Remember
that the muralwas done in 1938.) But the Ger-
man soldiers,who occupied the house during
WWII, may not have seen the swastikaeither,
for it was this verywall that was found riddled
with bullet holes, as if it had been the site of
some execution. These, as so many other ques-
tions, will have to remainunansweredhere, the
narrowspace of these two facing pages closing
down on me.]
The muralwas a blackand white photograph.
Le Corbusier'sfetish is photographic.Afterall,
photographytoo has been readin term of the fe-
tish. VictorBurginwrites:"Fetishism(...) ac-
complishesthat separationof knowledgefrom
belief characteristicof representation;its motive
is the unity of the subject (...). The photograph
stands to the subject-vieweras does the fetished
object (...). We knowwe see a two-dimensional
surface,we believe we look throughit into
three-dimensionalspace,we cannot do both at
the same time-there is a coming and going be-
tween knowledgeand belief."
So if Le Corbusier"entersthe house of a
stranger"by drawing,could "the house"be
standingin here for the photograph?By drawing
he enters the photographthat is itself a
stranger'shouse, occupyingand reterritorializing
the space, the city, the sexualitiesof the other
by reworkingthe image. Drawingon and in pho-
tographyis the instrumentof colonization.The
entryto the house of a strangeris alwaysa
breakingand entering-there being no entry
without force no matter how many invitations.
Le Corbusier'sarchitecturedepends in some
way on specific techniques of occupyingand yet
graduallyeffacing the domestic space of the
other.
Likeall colonists, Le Corbusierdoes not think of
it as an invasionbut as a gift. When recapitulat-
ing his life's workfive yearsbefore his death, he
symptomaticallywritesabout Algiersand Cap
Martinin the same terms:"1930.Algiers...seven
greatschemes (seven enormousstudies), free of
charge."And later, "1938-39. Eight muralpaint-
ings (free of charge)in the Badoviciand Helen
Greyhouse at Cap Martin."No chargefor the
discharge.Graywas outraged,now even her
name had been defaced.And renamingis, after
all, the first act of colonization.Such gifts can
not be returned.
P.S. In 1944, the retreatingGerman Armyblew up Eileen
Gray'sapartment in Menton (Saint-Tropez) having vandalized
E. 1027 and Temple a Paiella (her house in Castellar). She lost
everything. IIer drawingsand plans were used to light fires.
P.P.S. On August 26, 1965, the endless redrawingof the
"Femmes d'Alger"still unfinished, Le Corbusier went down
from E. 1027 to the sea and swam to his death.
P.P.P.S. In 1977 a local mason in charge of some work in the
house "mistakenly"demolished the murals. I like to think
that he did it on purpose. Eileen Gray had spend almost three
yearsliving on the site in complete isolation, building the
house with the masons, having lunch with them everyday.
Then again, she did the same thing when building her own
house at Castellar. The masons knew her well. In fact, they
loved her, and hated the arrogantBadovici. They understood
perfectly what the murals where about. They destroyed them.
In so doing, they showed more enlightenment than most crit-
ics and historians of architecture.
P.P.P.P.S. Since then, the murals have been reconstructed in
the house from the basis of photographs. They re-emerged
from their original medium. The occupation continues.
Colomina