Villa Lou Pérou

The Villa Lou Pérou in Saint-Tropez in southern France is a country house that was remodeled and designed by the Irish interior architect and designer Eileen Gray between 1954 and 1958 .

history

Lou Pérou ( Provençal for "[the] Peru") is the name of the architect Eileen Gray's third house, which she acquired in 1939 but did not renovate until 1954–1958. After selling her house Tempe a Pailla, built between 1932 and 1934, in 1954, with little building capital, she began to repair and convert the abandoned farmhouse in the vineyards below the Chapelle Sainte-Anne chapel in a southern hamlet of Saint-Tropez.

division

First, Gray partitioned the interior of the existing rectangular farmhouse to create a separate room for her housekeeper, Louise Dany. The existing gable roof with a roof covering made of monastery tiles was renewed by her and contrary to the construction method customary in southern France, the roof has gutters. In 1958 she added a single-storey extension with a flat roof at right angles to the existing house, in which she arranged the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. A spiral staircase opens up the concrete flat roof ceiling of the extension as a viewing and sun terrace. With the "Winkelhaus", she orients the living spaces to the south and west to the view side and at the same time creates a protected terrace area. A covered patio was added to the extension.

Interior design

In front of the large window areas of the living room and the bedrooms, sliding shutters made of steel profiles with flatly arranged lamellar boards are installed. The walls of the old and extension are plastered inside and out and painted with white lime paint. The south-western, house-high support pillar of the extension made of mortared natural stone, identical to the garden walls, contrasts with the white wall surfaces. In contrast to the furnishings in their earlier houses, especially E.1027 , the interiors are furnished with their familiar furniture exhibits and furniture that was bought on site.

Outside area and garden

The flat part of the vineyard was preserved in front of the house entrance. In the south, a semi-circular garden wall made of natural stone was built to fill the sloping terrain to the level of the floor of the house. The garage was approached from the remaining lower level of the property, so that it is hidden from the view of the house and garden. The green flat roof of the garage is at the level of the higher garden area and also serves as a seat.

intention

The villa differs from the earlier E.1027 houses planned by Gray , her most famous work, in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin (built 1926–1929), which she planned together with the Romanian architect Jean Badovici , and “ Tempe a Pailla ” in Castellar (built 1932–1934) - through the simplicity of the conception of the building, the interior, the terraces and the garden. While the avant-garde villa E.1027 , located on the Mediterranean Sea with Jean Badovici, still clearly refers to Le Corbusier's “five points for a new architecture: pilotis , roof gardens , ribbon windows and a free floor plan and facade design”, Eileen Gray has her subsequent villas less puristic and more geared towards the residents' personal needs. Her goals "A house understood from a social point of view: minimum space, maximum comfort" is practiced by her in the house near Saint-Tropez, which she began to renovate when she was 76 years old. The floor plan differs from Le Corbusier's open floor plan in that the private rooms are separated from public areas and the utility rooms.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ On this Eileen Gray's quote “Lou Pérou is a slang expression for - how can you say that? - Eldorado, but less pretentious ”, which probably referred to its modest prosperity and the small construction budget available. In: C. Constant, W. Wang: Eileen Gray, An architecture for all senses Wasmuth Verlag; 1996, pp. 194-195
2. ^ C. Constant, W. Wang: Eileen Gray, An architecture for all senses , pp. 194–195. Wasmuth Verlag, 1996.

literature

• C. Constant, W. Wang: Eileen Gray Architecture for all the senses. German Architecture Museum Harvard University Graduate School of Desigh, Wasmuth. ISBN 3-8030-0168-4 .
• Alfred Werner Maurer : 3 houses by designer Eileen Gray on the Côte d'Azur , Philologus Verlag, Basel 2007.

Coordinates: 43 ° 15 ′ 27 ″  N , 6 ° 38 ′ 26 ″  E