Irish interior designer and architect Eileen Gray was BOTD in 1878. Born Kathleen Smith in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, to a wealthy Scots aristocratic family, she was raised in her family’s estate in Wexford and in London. Largely educated by governesses, she was raised for marriage and presented as a debutante at Buckingham Palace. Interested in art and keen to break free from the limitations of her class, she enrolled at the Slade School of Art in 1900, where she became interested in Japanese lacquering techniques. In 1902, she moved to Paris, enrolling at the Académie Colarossi and switching to the Académie Julian. Returning to London in 1905 to care for her mother, she apprenticed for two years with furniture restorer Charles Dean. She sensibly persuaded her mother to buy her an apartment in Paris, returning in 1907, and began working with Japanese lacquer artist Seizo Sugawara. They opened a workshop together in 1910, and began producing and selling luxury furniture using exotic wood, ivory and furs. At the outbreak of World War One, she worked briefly as an ambulance driver in Paris, before returning to England with Sugawara. Returning to Paris after the war, she was hired to redesign the apartment of society hostess Juliette Mathieu-Lévy. Her Art Deco-inspired designs were a major success, and profiled in a 1920 issue of Harper’s Bazaar, bringing her work to an international audience. Her custom-made furniture included the Bibendum Chair, constructed of tyre-like cushions on a chromed steel frame; the Fauteuil aux Dragons (Dragons Armchair), featuring the entwined bodies of two lacquered dragons; and the Pirogue Day Bed, gondola-shaped and finished in patinated bronze lacquer. Trading on her success, she opened her own store, Jean Désert, in 1922, selling Art Deco furniture and abstract geometric rugs, attracting celebrity clients including James Joyce, Ezra Pound and Elsa Schiaparelli. By the mid-1920s, her furniture became simpler and more austere, reflecting the influence of her mentor and fairweather friend Le Corbusier. Openly bisexual, she was a regular guest at the salons of lesbian society hostess Natalie Clifford Barney, and had an intermittent relationship with actress Marie-Louise Darmien. In 1921, she began a relationship with Romanian architect Jean Badovici, after he wrote favourably about her designs in the journal L’architecture Vivante. At Badovici’s encouragement, she began informally studying architecture, acccompanying him on site visits. In 1926, Badovici purchased a coastal property at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin on the French Riveria, where she spent three years designing and constructing a Modernist villa. Named E-1027 (a code for their names), it featured open plan rooms, floor-to ceiling windows, open facades and a roof balcony, with moveable windows, shutter and screens designed to maximise airflow and natural light. Among the furniture designed for the house was an adjustable steel and glass table, which later became one of her most popular designs. Completed in 1929, Badovici later claimed to be the house’s joint architect, leading to their eventual break-up. As the landowner, Badovici moved into E-1027. One of his frequent guests was Le Corbusier, who painted giant coloured murals on the walls, in contravention of Gray’s wishes that the house be free from decoration. Gray moved to Menton to supervise the construction of another villa, but her star quickly faded, and she eventually closed her Paris store in 1930. During the Nazi occupation of France during World War Two, she was interned as a foreign national, and most of her architectural drawings and models were destroyed. After the war, she faded into obscurity until 1965, when Le Corbusier died while staying at E-1027. The resulting publicity led to renewed interest in her work, including features in several architectural magazines, retrospectives of her work, and high-profile purchases of her furniture by fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. In 1973, the 96 year-old Gray was made an honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland. She died in Paris in 1976, aged 98. In 2009, the Dragon Armchair owned by Saint-Laurent sold at auction for €21.9 million (£19.5 million), at the time the highest price ever paid for a piece of 20th century decorative art. After a 16-year renovation process, E-1027 was opened to the public in 2016. She was portrayed by Orla Brady in The Price of Desire and by Natalie Radmall-Quirke in E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea, each chronicling Gray’s construction of E-1027 and Le Corbusier’s role in erasing her reputation.