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Art and Architecture
Blog — 21 May 2025
Whilst at the Aotearoa Art Fair I was invited to take part in the talks programme to discuss the relationship between art and architecture and “How to live best with both”. The moderator was Jeremy Hansen, who is creative director of the Britomart project, an area of stylish regeneration on the harbourfront in Central Auckland. As well as public space, retail and restaurants, the Britomart Hotel is one of the most striking contemporary buildings in the city. The project was funded by developer Peter Cooper and designed by Cheshire Architects, it is an ambitious project with exemplary results, blending existing colonial buildings with new structures that somehow feel uniquely Auckland.
DJ Tai was the lead architect for the Britomart project and a fellow panellist, along with Sonja Hawkins an interior designer and art collector. It was a wide-ranging discussion about the relationship between buildings and art, from art as inspiration to art as decoration.
I have always been fascinated by Eileen Gray’s E1027 house in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. It is perhaps the most important building by a female architect/designer of the modern movement. It is a good example of 'Gesamtkunstwerk', where everything was designed by the same hand, the building, the garden, the furniture and the fittings. Gray famously fell out with her client and lover Jean Badovici, they were in the circle of friends that included Le Corbusier who built his Cabana just above this site. In fact he was swimming off the rocks at the bottom of the villa when he died. Corb, no doubt encouraged by Badovici, painted a series of murals on the walls of the house. This outraged Eileen Gray who vowed never to set foot in the house again, it was no doubt even more insulting that Le Corbusier was naked when he painted them. There is a Freudian tale to untangle there, toxic masculinity, envy and the desire to prove who was boss. I felt that this was a great place to start the panel conversation.
The problem is that the best architecture is in itself a work of art, and applied art is often merely decoration. Sitting between these two extremes there is of course collaboration, where artists and architect work together and produce a seamless work. London examples of the latter include the Herzog de Meuron’s Laban Centre with Michael Craig Martin, Foster and Antony Caro’s Millenium bridge, Henry Moore’s relief on The Time life Building on New Bond Street, the list goes on.
Le Corbusier’s chapel at Ronchamp is a work that is as much a sculpture as a piece of architecture, Like E1027 it is a total art work, a Gesamtkunstwerk, and there are no Eileen Gray rugs in it either.
The story of E1027 has been made into a movie which was released earlier this month 'E1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea', directed by Beatrice Minger.