Eileen Gray's visionary work spans design, architecture, and spatial art. As part of its "Golden Girls" series, the mpk Kaiserslautern is dedicating an exhibition to this pioneering designer, offering visitors a new way to experience her radically modern ideas about living, space, and design.
Eileen Gray (1878–1976), born in Ireland and educated in London and Paris, began with Japanese lacquer art and quickly became a sought-after designer. In 1927, as a self-taught designer and contrary to the conventions of her time, she built her first house, E.1027, on the French Riviera: a subtle and radically modern interplay of architecture and furniture that redefined flexibility, comfort, and intimacy.
As part of the mpk exhibition series, which honors outstanding positions of women in modernism – "Golden Girls" – Gray's cosmos can be experienced: Selected design objects, drafts, and drawings are presented in an exhibition architecture designed by the Department of Architecture at RPTU. Spatial figures and design fragments refer to Gray's spatial concepts, draw attention to spatial features, and interpret the work of the designer and architect.
Anna Viebrock, internationally acclaimed and renowned stage and costume designer and director, brought Gray's House E.1027 to the stage in 2012 as an intertwining of space and narrative. On the occasion of this exhibition, she is now developing a walk-in work for the mpk that combines architectural precision with scenographic condensation and finely composed spatial dramaturgy, thus making Eileen Gray's idea for House E.1027 poetically tangible.
May 3 to November 8, 2026
