Gabriel Guevrekian
Encyclopedia
Gabriel Guevrekian (November 21, 1892 (?) Istanbul
- October 29, 1970 Antibes
) was an architect and landscape design
er. Primarily an architect Guevrekian is best known for his contributions to landscape architecture. He created three Cubist gardens.
The modern gardens of Guevrekian and his contemporaries represented a shift from relating the garden to nature to a relation of the garden to human. As Dorothee Imbert says "Designers of these gardens did not attempt to represent a slice of the natural world – neither seeking a Cartesian or Virgillian ideal – but instead displayed a plastic composition of lines and surfaces built with living and inert materials, and framed like a picture." (Imbert 1997 p. 170) The garden became an extension of the house, an architectonic form.
, present day Istanbul
, and then moved with his family to Tehran
where he grew up. In 1910 he moved to Vienna
where he lived with his uncle, architect Alex Galoustian. He studied architecture at the Kunstgewerbeschule
with Oskar Strnad
and Josef Hoffmann
from 1915, and received his diploma in 1919. He then worked with Strnad and Hoffmann until he moved to Paris in 1922. In Paris he worked with le Corbusier
, André Lurçat
, Sigfried Giedion
and Henri Sauvage
. He worked with Robert Mallet-Stevens
from 1922 until 1926, where he worked on the designs for Rue Mallet-Stevens while also pursuing his own projects. Guevrekian worked as an independent architect in Paris from 1926.
He was actively involved in the early stages of the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne
(CIAM) which he chaired from 1928 until 1932, a position appointed him by le Corbusier
(Turner 1996). He co-founded the magazine L’architecture d’aujourd’hui. Josef Hoffmann invited him to contribute to the Werkbundsiedlung in Vienna in 1932.
In 1933 he returned to the newly established state of Iran
on invitation of the government. He designed governmental and public buildings, residences and villas, of which little is documented. He returned to Europe in 1937 and worked in London for three years, but due to the advent of World War II
none of his projects were realised. 1940 he returned to Paris where he worked on the development of pre-fabricated housing while also teaching in Saarbrücken
. He then ceased work from 1940-44 refusing to work for the Nazis and the Vichy government in France.
After the war he worked with Georges-Henri Pingusson
on rebuilding Saarbrücken
and also taught architecture there. In 1948 he moved to the USA to teach at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute. He became professor at the University of Illinois the next year, and taught there until his retirement in 1969. Guevrekian became a U.S.-citizen in 1955.
After his retirement Gabriel Guevrekian returned to France with his wife. He died 29 October 1970 in Antibes.
that sat below a rotating, internally illuminated sphere. These were surrounded by tiered plantings and hemmed in by two low walls of small triangles of glass in white and shades of pink. The sphere and the reflecting surfaces meant that light was reflected in all directions within the garden. By night the internally illuminated sphere projected light outwards enlivening the composition. (Imbert 1993 p. 128, Adams 1993 p. 32, Dodds 2002 p. 185)
Initially labelled in the press as a Persian garden, it eventually became referred to as the Cubist garden (Adams 1993 p. 30). For the same exposition, Guevrekian designed a pavilion for Sonia Delaunay
and Jacques Heim
.
His subsequent garden for Charles
and Marie-Laure de Noailles
at Villa Noailles
had an imposed space whose triangular shape the clients and Mallet-Stevens viewed as suited to Guevrekian's new design style. Noailles had consulted both Mies van der Rohe and le Corbusier before employing Mallet-Stevens. He wanted artifice in his landscape. The Villa commanded great views of the Cote d’Azur and Noailles wished to contrast this strongly with an enclosed and architectonic ensemble that framed the natural whilst delineating ownership. (Imbert 1997 p. 130-132)
The disregard for the needs of the plants in the Noailles garden and the differing growth rates soon disrupted the balance of the design and prompted Charles de Noailles, himself a famous amateur gardener, to replant the design entirely, not long after its instigation. It was, however, a progression on the Paris garden by its regard for physical occupation.
Guevrekian designed Villa Heim, built 1927-1930. He also designed the interior and furniture, and a garden consisting of a series of rectangular terraces. Villa Heim featured in L'Illustration
and L'Architecte.
Guevrekian was well involved with the CIAM by this time and had shifted to a more functional style. The house has since been modified extensively and has been split into two apartments.
George Dodds provides this reading of the Paradise garden; "Paradise garden are idealised and isolated enclaves in which a water element representing the four rivers of paradise divides the space into four equal precincts." (Dodds 2002 p. 192) Given the very limited space that Guevrekian had to work with and the need for people to be able to parade past, Dodds reads the four reflection pools as being this element with the garden halved for convenience. "The early Mesopotamian settlers conceived of the sky as a triangle and depicted it as a mountain. The moon, which brought relief from the relentless sun, was depicted as a tree atop the mountain of the sky. As trees mark an oasis and the moon is a life-giver, so the sap of the moon-tree must be water – the elixir of life." (Dodds 2002 p. 192-193) Guevrekian uses the metal sphere as both representative of the moon and tree, a technique he uses in later designs. The tree feeds the "water" in the pools below and the plants beyond.
Dodds also reads the form as being a "straight-up" axonometric rather than the "shallow and compressed" perspective that Wesley draws directly from Picasso. (Dodds 2002 p. 191) Guevrekian uses the axonometric, a popular architectural type where all measurements remain true in an idealised form. He develops this idea further with Robert and Sonia Delauny, whose simultaneist art he draws upon and whom he later works with to form the purist movement.
The main criticism of Guevrekian's gardens is that he fails to truly translate the two dimensional medium of cubist painting into the three dimensionality of a garden. Indeed, is it possible to return a style that essentially compresses into two dimensions three spatial dimensions, and a fourth of time, back in to an essentially four dimensional medium? This criticism supposes that was his intention. Modern readings see Guevrekian's awareness of the print media, of the transience of his gardens and their use as stepping stones to a future not yet visible. (Dodds 2002, Imbert 1997) This
and André Breton
in his use of water and reflection (2002). Contemporaries such as le Corbusier, Andre Vera, Paul Vera and Jean-Charles Moreau were all using similar techniques, drawing on earlier landscapes like those of Alexander Pope. Later designs influenced by Hyeres were the Veras and Moreau's design for the Hotel de Noailles and le Corbusier in his Besteigui garden. (Dodds 2002 p. 189) The use of Man Ray
as photographer for the site, as the Veras had with the hotel design, controlled the views that the garden was judged from.
It was perhaps an historic and ironic reference to the Claude Glass
of the English Picturesque that these gardens were emphasising the false and idealised nature of gardens. The main effect these jardins moderns had was to "extend the abstract, orthogonal order of the modern architectural interior into landscape. The connection to Cubist painting, Dorothee Imbert argues, was superficial, a matter of imitation rather than principle."(Imbert 1997 p. 11)
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
- October 29, 1970 Antibes
Antibes
Antibes is a resort town in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France.It lies on the Mediterranean in the Côte d'Azur, located between Cannes and Nice. The town of Juan-les-Pins is within the commune of Antibes...
) was an architect and landscape design
Landscape design
Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practised by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice landscape design bridges between landscape architecture and garden design.-Design scope:...
er. Primarily an architect Guevrekian is best known for his contributions to landscape architecture. He created three Cubist gardens.
The modern gardens of Guevrekian and his contemporaries represented a shift from relating the garden to nature to a relation of the garden to human. As Dorothee Imbert says "Designers of these gardens did not attempt to represent a slice of the natural world – neither seeking a Cartesian or Virgillian ideal – but instead displayed a plastic composition of lines and surfaces built with living and inert materials, and framed like a picture." (Imbert 1997 p. 170) The garden became an extension of the house, an architectonic form.
Biography
Guevrekian was born by some accounts in 1900 (Imbert 1993, Turner 1996 ), by others in 1892. He was born in ConstantinopleConstantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
, present day Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, and then moved with his family to Tehran
Tehran
Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...
where he grew up. In 1910 he moved to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
where he lived with his uncle, architect Alex Galoustian. He studied architecture at the Kunstgewerbeschule
University of Applied Arts Vienna
The University of Applied Arts Vienna is an institution of higher education in Vienna, the capital of Austria. It has had university status since 1970.-History:...
with Oskar Strnad
Oskar Strnad
Oskar Strnad was an Austrian architect, sculptor, designer and set designer for films and theatres. Together with Josef Frank he was instrumental in creating the distinctive character of the Wiener Schule der Architektur...
and Josef Hoffmann
Josef Hoffmann
Josef Hoffmann was an Austrian architect and designer of consumer goods.- Biography :...
from 1915, and received his diploma in 1919. He then worked with Strnad and Hoffmann until he moved to Paris in 1922. In Paris he worked with le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
, André Lurçat
André Lurçat
André Lurçat was a French modernist architect, landscape architect, furniture designer and city planner, a founding member of CIAM, and active in the rebuilding in French cities after World War II...
, Sigfried Giedion
Sigfried Giedion
Sigfried Giedion was a Bohemia-born Swiss historian and critic of architecture....
and Henri Sauvage
Henri Sauvage
Henri Sauvage was a French architectural designer.Sauvage was born in Rouen, France. After studying at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in the atelier of Jean-Louis Pascal, he opened a wallpaper shop in Paris for which he got orders from Hector Guimard and Louis Majorelle, he then...
. He worked with Robert Mallet-Stevens
Robert Mallet-Stevens
Robert Mallet-Stevens was a French architect and designer. Along with Le Corbusier he is widely regarded as the most influential figure in French architecture in the period between the two World Wars....
from 1922 until 1926, where he worked on the designs for Rue Mallet-Stevens while also pursuing his own projects. Guevrekian worked as an independent architect in Paris from 1926.
He was actively involved in the early stages of the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne
Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne
The Congrès internationaux d'architecture moderne – CIAM was an organization founded in 1928 and disbanded in 1959, responsible for a series of events and congresses arranged around the world by the most prominent architects of the time, with the objective of spreading the principles of the Modern...
(CIAM) which he chaired from 1928 until 1932, a position appointed him by le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
(Turner 1996). He co-founded the magazine L’architecture d’aujourd’hui. Josef Hoffmann invited him to contribute to the Werkbundsiedlung in Vienna in 1932.
In 1933 he returned to the newly established state of Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
on invitation of the government. He designed governmental and public buildings, residences and villas, of which little is documented. He returned to Europe in 1937 and worked in London for three years, but due to the advent of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
none of his projects were realised. 1940 he returned to Paris where he worked on the development of pre-fabricated housing while also teaching in Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken is the capital of the state of Saarland in Germany. The city is situated at the heart of a metropolitan area that borders on the west on Dillingen and to the north-east on Neunkirchen, where most of the people of the Saarland live....
. He then ceased work from 1940-44 refusing to work for the Nazis and the Vichy government in France.
After the war he worked with Georges-Henri Pingusson
Georges-Henri Pingusson
-Biography:Georges-Henri Pingusson was born 1894 in Clermont-Ferrand. 1920-1925 he studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.He built hotel Latitude 43 and several villas in the south of France...
on rebuilding Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken is the capital of the state of Saarland in Germany. The city is situated at the heart of a metropolitan area that borders on the west on Dillingen and to the north-east on Neunkirchen, where most of the people of the Saarland live....
and also taught architecture there. In 1948 he moved to the USA to teach at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute. He became professor at the University of Illinois the next year, and taught there until his retirement in 1969. Guevrekian became a U.S.-citizen in 1955.
After his retirement Gabriel Guevrekian returned to France with his wife. He died 29 October 1970 in Antibes.
Designs
Robert Mallet-Stevens had produced earlier works like les Roses Rouges which were hailed as jardin moderne and jardin d'avant garde. He also designed a garden for the 1925 Exposition des Arts Decoratifs. Through Mallet-Stevens, Guevrekian received an invitation to submit a modern rendering of the Persian Paradise Garden. (Wesley 1981 p. 17)Garden of Water and Light
The Jardin d'Eau et de Lumiere for the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs was an equilateral triangle broken up into triangular elements. In the centre were four tiered reflecting pools decorated by Robert DelaunayRobert Delaunay
Robert Delaunay was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, cofounded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstract, reminiscent of Paul Klee...
that sat below a rotating, internally illuminated sphere. These were surrounded by tiered plantings and hemmed in by two low walls of small triangles of glass in white and shades of pink. The sphere and the reflecting surfaces meant that light was reflected in all directions within the garden. By night the internally illuminated sphere projected light outwards enlivening the composition. (Imbert 1993 p. 128, Adams 1993 p. 32, Dodds 2002 p. 185)
Initially labelled in the press as a Persian garden, it eventually became referred to as the Cubist garden (Adams 1993 p. 30). For the same exposition, Guevrekian designed a pavilion for Sonia Delaunay
Sonia Delaunay
Sonia Delaunay was a Jewish-French artist who, with her husband Robert Delaunay and others, cofounded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. Her work extends to painting, textile design and stage set design...
and Jacques Heim
Jacques Heim
Jacques Heim was a Parisian designer and manufacturer of women's furs and couture, whose maison de couture opened in 1930 and closed in 1969....
.
Cubist garden at Villa Noailles
Charles de Noailles
Charles de Noailles , Arthur Anne Marie Charles, Vicomte de Noailles was a French nobleman and patron of the arts.-Biography:...
and Marie-Laure de Noailles
Marie-Laure de Noailles
Marie-Laure de Noailles, Vicomtesse de Noailles , was one of the 20th century's most daring and influential patrons of the arts, noted for her associations with Salvador Dalí, Balthus, Jean Cocteau, Man Ray, Luis Buñuel, Francis Poulenc, Jean Hugo, Jean-Michel Frank and others as well as her...
at Villa Noailles
Villa Noailles
Villa Noailles is an early modernist house, built by architect Robert Mallet-Stevens for art patrons Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles, between 1923 and 1927. It is located in the hills above Hyères, in the Var, southeastern France.- History :...
had an imposed space whose triangular shape the clients and Mallet-Stevens viewed as suited to Guevrekian's new design style. Noailles had consulted both Mies van der Rohe and le Corbusier before employing Mallet-Stevens. He wanted artifice in his landscape. The Villa commanded great views of the Cote d’Azur and Noailles wished to contrast this strongly with an enclosed and architectonic ensemble that framed the natural whilst delineating ownership. (Imbert 1997 p. 130-132)
The disregard for the needs of the plants in the Noailles garden and the differing growth rates soon disrupted the balance of the design and prompted Charles de Noailles, himself a famous amateur gardener, to replant the design entirely, not long after its instigation. It was, however, a progression on the Paris garden by its regard for physical occupation.
Villa Heim
For Jacques HeimJacques Heim
Jacques Heim was a Parisian designer and manufacturer of women's furs and couture, whose maison de couture opened in 1930 and closed in 1969....
Guevrekian designed Villa Heim, built 1927-1930. He also designed the interior and furniture, and a garden consisting of a series of rectangular terraces. Villa Heim featured in L'Illustration
L'Illustration
L'Illustration was a weekly French newspaper published in Paris. It was founded by Edouard Charton; the first issue was published on March 4, 1843....
and L'Architecte.
Guevrekian was well involved with the CIAM by this time and had shifted to a more functional style. The house has since been modified extensively and has been split into two apartments.
Readings of his work
Whether that was the artist's intention, as for subsequent gardens, is hard to determine. As Imbert points out "due to the paucity of written evidence, the garden designers’ intentions remain largely undocumented; that they appreciated the implications of the cubist movement for their field, however, is most certain. (Imbert 1997 p. 169) Criticisms of the work as being too literal a translation of, or direct reference to, cubist painting is both unfair and imperceptive (and usually based on Wesley's critique or similar ideas). Although his primary artistic medium was painting, Guevrekian designed with more influences than cubist painting and a greater understanding of modern media and techniques than he is often given credit for. Also, criticism of the Paris garden shows a complete disregard for the Persian Paradise garden element which was his primary brief.George Dodds provides this reading of the Paradise garden; "Paradise garden are idealised and isolated enclaves in which a water element representing the four rivers of paradise divides the space into four equal precincts." (Dodds 2002 p. 192) Given the very limited space that Guevrekian had to work with and the need for people to be able to parade past, Dodds reads the four reflection pools as being this element with the garden halved for convenience. "The early Mesopotamian settlers conceived of the sky as a triangle and depicted it as a mountain. The moon, which brought relief from the relentless sun, was depicted as a tree atop the mountain of the sky. As trees mark an oasis and the moon is a life-giver, so the sap of the moon-tree must be water – the elixir of life." (Dodds 2002 p. 192-193) Guevrekian uses the metal sphere as both representative of the moon and tree, a technique he uses in later designs. The tree feeds the "water" in the pools below and the plants beyond.
Dodds also reads the form as being a "straight-up" axonometric rather than the "shallow and compressed" perspective that Wesley draws directly from Picasso. (Dodds 2002 p. 191) Guevrekian uses the axonometric, a popular architectural type where all measurements remain true in an idealised form. He develops this idea further with Robert and Sonia Delauny, whose simultaneist art he draws upon and whom he later works with to form the purist movement.
The main criticism of Guevrekian's gardens is that he fails to truly translate the two dimensional medium of cubist painting into the three dimensionality of a garden. Indeed, is it possible to return a style that essentially compresses into two dimensions three spatial dimensions, and a fourth of time, back in to an essentially four dimensional medium? This criticism supposes that was his intention. Modern readings see Guevrekian's awareness of the print media, of the transience of his gardens and their use as stepping stones to a future not yet visible. (Dodds 2002, Imbert 1997) This
Misdirected Criticisms
Dodds notes the connection to surrealist writings of Raymond RousselRaymond Roussel
Raymond Roussel was a French poet, novelist, playwright, musician, and chess enthusiast. Through his novels, poems, and plays he exerted a profound influence on certain groups within 20th century French literature, including the Surrealists, Oulipo, and the authors of the nouveau...
and André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
in his use of water and reflection (2002). Contemporaries such as le Corbusier, Andre Vera, Paul Vera and Jean-Charles Moreau were all using similar techniques, drawing on earlier landscapes like those of Alexander Pope. Later designs influenced by Hyeres were the Veras and Moreau's design for the Hotel de Noailles and le Corbusier in his Besteigui garden. (Dodds 2002 p. 189) The use of Man Ray
Man Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
as photographer for the site, as the Veras had with the hotel design, controlled the views that the garden was judged from.
It was perhaps an historic and ironic reference to the Claude Glass
Claude glass
A Claude glass is a small mirror, slightly convex in shape, with its surface tinted a dark colour. Bound up like a pocket-book or in a carrying case, black mirrors were used by artists, travellers and connoisseurs of landscape and landscape painting...
of the English Picturesque that these gardens were emphasising the false and idealised nature of gardens. The main effect these jardins moderns had was to "extend the abstract, orthogonal order of the modern architectural interior into landscape. The connection to Cubist painting, Dorothee Imbert argues, was superficial, a matter of imitation rather than principle."(Imbert 1997 p. 11)
Works
- 1923: Galerie Au Sacre du Printemps, Paris
- 1925: two works at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels ModernesExposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels ModernesThe International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts was a World's fair held in Paris, France, from April to October 1925. The term "Art Deco" was derived by shortening the words Arts Décoratifs, in the title of this exposition, but not until the late 1960s by British art critic...
:- Boutique Simultané for Sonia DelaunaySonia DelaunaySonia Delaunay was a Jewish-French artist who, with her husband Robert Delaunay and others, cofounded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. Her work extends to painting, textile design and stage set design...
- Jardin d'eau et de lumière, temporary garden, Esplanades des Invalides, Paris. Robert DelaunayRobert DelaunayRobert Delaunay was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, cofounded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstract, reminiscent of Paul Klee...
contributed.
- Boutique Simultané for Sonia Delaunay
- 1926: Cubist garden for Villa NoaillesVilla NoaillesVilla Noailles is an early modernist house, built by architect Robert Mallet-Stevens for art patrons Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles, between 1923 and 1927. It is located in the hills above Hyères, in the Var, southeastern France.- History :...
in Hyères - 1927: Villa Heim, avenue de Madrid 17, Paris
- 1930-1932: Two houses at Werkbundsiedlung, Woinovichgasse 10-12, Vienna