French photographer Stéphane Couturier, with his new exhibition E-1027+123 at Galerie Kornfeld in Berlin, reconstructs the tension between architecture, history, and visual memory.
At the heart of the exhibition is Eileen Gray’s Villa E-1027, one of the iconic structures of modern architecture—not merely a house, but a manifesto.
The Ghost of Female Modernism
Built in the late 1920s in southern France, E-1027 was a symbol of a female architect’s stance against the patriarchal architectural mindset of her time.
Gray’s structure, which fused functionality with aesthetics, would later encounter Le Corbusier’s controversial murals—a space where female creativity intersected with male intervention.
Couturier reinterprets this historical tension using double-exposure technique. Gray’s geometric precision clashes with Corbusier’s expressive gestures within the photograph; the space becomes both poetic and political.
Between Photography and Painting
Couturier elevates photography beyond a documentary tool.
His layered compositions transform modernist lines into an abstract rhythm; color and form function like architectural materials.
This approach continues the series that garnered major attention at the Arles Photography Festival, now extended to Berlin.
Each work contains a double memory:
Eileen Gray’s utopian silence,
Le Corbusier’s intrusive energy,
Couturier’s contemporary gaze.
The result is not just the photographic echo of a building, but of an era and an ideology.
E-1027+123: A Story Within the Code
The exhibition title “E-1027+123” references both the house’s name and the symbolic system behind it.
Gray derived “E-1027” from the initials she shared with her lover Jean Badovici:
E (Eileen), 10 (J), 2 (B), 7 (G).
Couturier expands this code with 123—a new layer, a new reading.
Like every intervention added to the house’s history, his work embeds the trace of another time into the photograph.
Apartment No:26 Note
Couturier’s E-1027 is not merely a photograph of an architectural structure, but a letter written to the ghost of female modernism. While making Eileen Gray’s overlooked legacy visible again, it simultaneously touches the fragile myths of modernism.
Here, photography is both document and correction:
It reminds us not of what is seen, but of what has been forgotten.
Dates: 31 October 2025 – 10 January 2026
Venue: Galerie Kornfeld, Berlin
Artist: Stéphane Couturier
Exhibition: E-1027+123
