Eileen Gray

Eileen Gray (1878–1976) was an Irish designer and architect who worked in Paris for most of her life, was largely forgotten for the middle forty years of it, and is now recognised as one of the most original figures in twentieth-century design. She was born in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, studied at the Slade in London, and moved to Paris in 1902.

She began not in furniture but in lacquer — the Japanese technique of building a surface from dozens of thin applied layers, each one cured before the next. She trained under Seizo Sugawara and spent years on it. It is slow, toxic work, and it gave her a designer’s obsession with surface and finish that never left her.

E1027: the name is a code

Between 1926 and 1929 Gray designed and built a house at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin on the French Riviera, working with the architect and critic Jean Badovici. She named it E1027, and the name is a monogram of the two of them:

  • E for Eileen
  • 10 for J, the tenth letter — Jean
  • 2 for B — Badovici
  • 7 for G — Gray

Her initial wraps around his. The house was her first work of architecture, and she designed everything in it, down to the fittings.

What happened next is the part of the story usually left out of furniture catalogues. Le Corbusier, a friend of Badovici’s and a frequent guest, painted a series of large murals on the walls in 1938 — without Gray’s permission, and on a house she had designed to be white and plain. She regarded it as an act of vandalism. For decades afterwards the house was widely misattributed to him.

The table, and why it adjusts

The E1027 side table of 1927 was designed for a specific problem in that house: Gray’s sister liked to eat breakfast in bed, and needed a surface that could reach over the mattress without a leg getting in the way.

That is why the table is shaped the way it is. The base is an open C, not a ring, so it slides underneath a bed, a sofa or an armchair and cantilevers the top out over it. The column telescopes, so the height can be set to whatever the piece of furniture beside it happens to be. A tubular chrome-plated steel frame and a plain glass top — nothing decorative anywhere on it, which is why it has aged so well.

Ours has a 50cm tempered glass top and adjusts up to 70cm. It is listed under accessories.

Setting the height

The rule that works: set the top within about 5cm of the arm height of the chair beside it. Reaching up or down for a cup is what makes a side table feel wrong, and it is almost always a height problem rather than a placement one.

  • Beside an Eames-style lounge chair, the arm sits around 55–60cm from the floor. Set the table to match.
  • Beside a Barcelona-style chair there is no arm at all, so work from the 40cm seat height and set the table slightly above it.
  • Beside an LC4 chaise longue, use the cantilever as intended and bring the top out over the frame.

A lounge chair without a surface next to it rarely gets used. It is the most common thing missing from an otherwise well-furnished corner, and it is the cheapest to fix.

A note on what we sell

Habitat Furnishes is not affiliated with, endorsed by or licensed by ClassiCon or the estate of Eileen Gray. Our table is described as “E1027 style” or “Eileen Gray style” because it is our own reproduction of the design, built to the specification published on the product page.