Eileen Gray - inspiration

The form of the lampshade was inspired by the life and work of Eileen Gray – architect and furniture designer – underappreciated in her lifetime but today heralded as the first lady of modernist design and the icon of Bauhaus. Contrary to her contemporaries such as Le Corbusier, Gray thought 

“a house is not a machine to live in. It is the shell of man, his extension, his release, his spiritual emanation”.  

In the designs created by Eileen Gray one can clearly see views polemic to the decidedly masculine, hard line of the male stars of art and architecture of her times.  It is her furniture in particular which introduced feminine tones into the severe modernist style.