‘Sun Breakers’ book sees Jürgen Beck’s photography celebrate Eileen Gray’s E-1027 house
‘Sun Breakers’, a new book celebrating the work of Eileen Gray, looks at the architect’s E-1027 house through the captivating, intimate photography of Jürgen Beck

Photographer Jürgen Beck and Spector Books have launched Sun Breakers, a tome celebrating the architecture icon that is Eileen Gray’s E-1027 house. Presenting the home as an intimate, personal space, nestled into its landscape, instead of offering wide views that would 'falsely enlarge the space', the artist has captured a unique perspective on the modernist architecture piece that we are now all so familiar with – yet which still holds layers of experience and secrets to offer.
Sun Breakers by Spector Books
Sun Breakers, which launched in spring 2023, features a delicious selection of Beck's expert photography – the Zurich-based artist is a graduate from the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, Germany – and essays by art writer and translator Dorothee Elmiger. Graphic designer Ina Kwon is behind the book's overall look and layout. The team's aim was to create a dialogue between the natural landscape and the building, as well as between photography and architecture.
Looking at the building, inside and out, through the overgrowth around it, as well as peeking from inside out, Beck’s work searches for an 'expression of openness' and at the same time, intimacy.
'Beck moves inquisitively around the E-1027 house, which has only recently been elevated to an architectural icon. He takes summer strolls beside and into it, and avoids clear horizon lines or overviews that would enlarge what was planned as an intimate space for work, leisure and sport,' write the team.
Beck’s approach to the project is 'to encapsulate the design, characterised by its openness and lightness and what comes alive within it, in a story poised between glamour and critique'.
'Through the titular sun breakers, shutter-like screens from the Mediterranean sun, photographic and architectural locations lose their objective frames, and the space opens into an expression for other forms of living and working, a malleable structure for flexible days and relationships. He reveals a design that addresses psychological and emotional needs, that inscribes things with their own names and relationships long before auto-fiction and the affective turn.'
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).
-
ICON 4x4 goes EV, giving their classic Bronco-based restomod an electric twist
The EV Bronco is ICON 4x4’s first foray into electrifying its range of bespoke vintage off-roaders and SUVs
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
‘Dressed to Impress’ captures the vivid world of everyday fashion in the 1950s and 1960s
A new photography book from The Anonymous Project showcases its subjects when they’re dressed for best, posing for events and celebrations unknown
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Inside Camperlab’s Harry Nuriev-designed Paris store, a dramatic exercise in contrast
The Crosby Studios founder tells Wallpaper* the story behind his new store design for Mallorcan shoe brand Camperlab, which centres on an interplay between ‘crushed concrete’ and gleaming industrial design
By Jack Moss Published
-
At the Institute of Indology, a humble new addition makes all the difference
Continuing the late Balkrishna V Doshi’s legacy, Sangath studio design a new take on the toilet in Gujarat
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
How Le Corbusier defined modernism
Le Corbusier was not only one of 20th-century architecture's leading figures but also a defining father of modernism, as well as a polarising figure; here, we explore the life and work of an architect who was influential far beyond his field and time
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Stay in a Parisian apartment which artfully balances minimalism and warmth
Tour this pied-a-terre in the 7th arrondissement, designed by Valeriane Lazard
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
How to protect our modernist legacy
We explore the legacy of modernism as a series of midcentury gems thrive, keeping the vision alive and adapting to the future
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
A 1960s North London townhouse deftly makes the transition to the 21st Century
Thanks to a sensitive redesign by Studio Hagen Hall, this midcentury gem in Hampstead is now a sustainable powerhouse.
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
The new MASP expansion in São Paulo goes tall
Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP) expands with a project named after Pietro Maria Bardi (the institution's first director), designed by Metro Architects
By Daniel Scheffler Published
-
Marta Pan and André Wogenscky's legacy is alive through their modernist home in France
Fondation Marta Pan – André Wogenscky: how a creative couple’s sculptural masterpiece in France keeps its authors’ legacy alive
By Adam Štěch Published
-
Modernist churches: we give praise for the genre’s concrete geometries
Modernist churches offer awe and architectural inspiration, blending concrete geometries with spiritual reverence; we take a tour
By Ellie Stathaki Published