Renderings of a Queer Future:  The Intersection of Impressionist Cinema and Cubist Architecture

The work of architect and set designer Robert Mallet-Stevens (French, 18861945) has long been occupied footnotes and passing mentions in the history of modern architecture. There have been many attempts to reclaim Mallet-Stevens’ “rightful” place in the canon. My thesis disrupts this narrative in two parts. The first part traces the queering of Mallet-Stevens’ legacy through his collaborative process and connections to the world of fashion through his work with couturiers and cinema. These connections denigrated Mallet-Stevens in the eyes of critics like Siegfried Giedion, who deemed Mallet-Stevens’ work to be morally empty, more akin to fashion than truly “Modern” architecture. This reading has shaped the discussion of Mallet-Stevens ever since. In my thesis, I argue that a queer theory reading of Mallet-Stevens’ early work and his legacy find that he was radical for the very reasons that Giedion deemed him to be bankrupt. The second half explores the film L’Inhumaine (1924) and Mallet-Stevens’ first work, the Villa Noailles (1924-33) in relation to one another, linked thematically and programmatically through queer theory. Both of these works construct futuristic worlds, where the occupants pursue their passions without the constraints of heteronormativity. We can also explore the relationship of cinematic and real space through the filming of these two works.


Acknowledgements
I would like to thank a few people for their support in the execution of my master's thesis.
First of all, I would like to thank my stellar committee: Professors Sheila Crane, Jessica Sewell, and Alison Levine. I find you all so inspiring, and it has been the experience of a lifetime to get to work under your guidance. Professor Crane, thank you for all of the support you have given me as my Committee Chair. To Professor Sewell, thank you for your endless patience and guidance regarding the struggles of Graduate school. Professor Levine, I know you came into this committee on the later end, but you took this unknown territory head-on. Being able to work with an outside department is a rare honor, and I hope this work reveals how much I am glad to have your expertise in the field of French Interwar Cinema and culture. Meeting with you in January 2017 at the Colonnade Club was a big ego boost, in a time when I needed one.
I would also like to thank the Architecture School Travel Fellowships. Because of this considerable investment in my research, I was able to visit the Villa Noailles in Hyères, France, as well as the Rue Mallet-Stevens, Musée Arts Decoratif, Cité de l'Architecture, and the Centre Pompidou. Because architecture is inherently a phenomenological experience, the chance to move through these buildings in their own context was an irreplaceable component to this thesis.
Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Heather and Barry, siblings, Miriam, Noah, Seth, and partner, Austin, for your continuing emotional and general support in my studies and work on my thesis. I know you all are working toward your own goals, but I want to let you know that I understand and appreciate all of your efforts to be supportive when I have been focusing on my own pursuits. The world of a moving picture is screened. The screen is not a support, not like a canvas; there is nothing to support, that way. It holds a projection, as light as light. A screen is a barrier. What does the silver screen screen? It screens me from the world it holds-that is, makes me invisible. And it screens that world from me. That the projected world does not exist (now) is its only difference from reality. 1 I use this quote because it accesses how real and absorbing the screen can be, and shows how film mediates the built environment. What is the nature of the relationship between the world of the screen and the world around us?

Table of Images
Visual media like illustration, photography, and cinema can shape, inspire, or create new spatial forms. Mallet-Stevens' early work between 1922-1924  undergoes from the transformation of illustrated media in Une Cité Moderne (1922), to the architectural models and set design for L' Inhumaine (1924), and finally into his first built work on the Villa Noailles in Hyères (1924-33) 2 . But I found that there were thematic similarities between L'Inhumaine and the Villa Noailles that spoke to a camera-conscious architecture that was designed for queer occupation.
My research revealed a historiographic aspect to Mallet-Stevens' legacy that needed to be addressed before I could address more theoretical questions. Mallet-Stevens' aesthetic style and narrative were not in keeping with the Interwar critical rubric of the "modern architect" (see Becherer and Hornbeck (French, 1886(French, -1945 work and legacy has undergone several cycles of critical neglect and reclamation. My thesis aims to reframe Mallet-Stevens' early work through its relationship to the camera and its queer occupation. In order to do this, we must become acquainted with Mallet-Stevens, trace the reception of his work, and bridge the two themes of camera and occupation in order to create a new frame for understanding Mallet-Stevens' work. The connections aim simultaneously to link the disparate fields of film studies and architectural history.
Robert Mallet-Stevens, born 1886 in Paris, to Maurice Mallet, studied   relates more to the "female" part of the title, L'Inhumaine. A woman who does not desire suitors, is career driven, and feigns heartlessness is not an ordinary woman. The supposed love story is not motivated by a sexual desire, but an asexual, humanitarian one, as the main characters' greatest desires are to bring music and joy to the whole world through technology.  Bordwell, now an author of film studies textbooks, submitted his dissertation French Impressionist Cinema. In it, he attempts to define the unified movement of Impressionist film through their similarities they possess, including subjective camerawork and editing as a storytelling device. Neither Lawder nor Bordwell touched the subject architecture. In fact, Lawder pointed out that Henry-Russell Hitchcock misidentified Mallet-Stevens' nationality by saying he was Belgian, but then goes on to say that Mallet-Stevens would be the "most important French architect of the twenties" as long as we categorized Le Corbusier as Swiss. 3 His discussion of architecture is limited to contemporary buildings. In fairness to Lawder, his description of L'Inhumaine was very evocative, and included accounts of the film's production.
While these film studies books ignore the significance of the architecture, they were also attempting to define stylistic genres. Lawder's Cubist cinema is defined as the synthesis of a to access a new reading of Mallet-Stevens' work. It prefigures the 1990s wave of feminist art and architectural history that we will consider shortly.
Despite truncating what could have been a focus on fashion and Mallet-Stevens, Becherer has an excellent discussion on Mallet-Stevens' conception of cinema and the statements required of his modern architecture. Becherer writes that, "Mallet-Stevens emphasized the importance of film to modern culture, for unlike theater, it was immensely popular. This was due largely to film's ability to convincingly portray the unreal…" 10 . This is an early example of the ways in which the relationship between L'Inhumaine and Mallet-Stevens' built architecture on the Rue Mallet-Stevens can be connected and understood together. L'Inhumaine and its ultramodern world is "projecting an optimistic view of the world as it could be, a society capable of anything, even immortality, provided science were allowed to run its course unimpeded." 11 This analysis is more nuanced than the earlier Deshoulières and Jeanneau iterations, and it bridges the divide between the built world and the screened world, if only for a few paragraphs.
Discourses surrounding Mallet-Stevens were not directly impacted by the feminist wave of the 1990s, but many of the approaches and theory originating from this fruitful period were integral to my analysis, especially. Alice T. Friedman's 1998   Georgette Leblanc, as well as the programmatic similarities between the Barnsdall House and Claire Lescot's living space in the film.

Beatriz Colomina's edited volume Sexuality and Space and her book Privacy and
Publicity both examine sexuality as it relates to architecture. In the preface to Sexuality and Space, Colomina writes, "It is not a question of looking at how sexuality acts itself out in space, but rather to ask: How is the question of space already inscribed in the question of sexuality?" 19 She goes on to say that we must change our thinking about architecture to think of it as a type of media, "not only because architecture is made available to us through these media [drawings, photographs, film, etc.] but because the built object is itself a system of representation." 20 Colomina's underlying assumption in all of her work is that architecture is a type of media, or a system of representation. We can see this through-line in the essays she selected for Sexuality and Space, where there are at least two papers that use film and television as their preferred media to bridge the space between the fields of sexuality and architectural space. In her own work in Privacy and Publicity, Colomina's chapter "Interior," was both the most applicable and best known portion of this book. 21 Colomina sets up a discussion of how interiority operates in homes designed by Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier. 22 Colomina's concept of interiority relates to theatricality and sexuality. She argues that the nature of a domestic interior space that is reminiscent of a theater box, is to subvert the safety provided by a public theater box, and architects like Loos use this spatial design to control the behavior of their female occupants. male gaze of female "privileged space" inside their own homes undermine the safety of a private space. The voyeurism in Loos' house, however, does operate in a different way than Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye. In the chapter "Windows," Colomina argues that where Loos implies and invites a predatory male gaze on the female body, Le Corbusier's windows and architecture frame the occupants, transforming them into subjects of voyeurism, without emphasizing femalealigned interiority. 23 Colomina also notes that Loos' denigration of Hoffmann's and the "Vienna Secession architects as being 'dilettanti,' 'fops,' and 'suburban dandies' who buy their 'pre-tied ties in the woman's fashion displays.' The question of modernity cannot be separated from that of gender and sexuality." 24 Colomina's understanding of the homophobia in Loos' attitude toward Hoffmann informed my reading of Giedion's reading of Mallet-Stevens' work, based on the similarities between the two criticisms.
Colomina's interest in the spatial dynamics of seeing and view-framing also helped to inform my understanding of the ways in which Le Corbusier employs windows and frames to create spaces with film or photography in mind, and how that operation might be different for a man who was designing film sets concurrently with his spaces at the Villa Noailles.

Chapter 2: L'Inhumaine
L'Inhumaine (1924) is a film that is accurately described as "one of the most absurd Great Movies ever made." 1 The title, translates to "The Inhumane Woman," which is not very representative of the film. The plot is so insignificant that the film's legacy is often framed around its stylistic and visual experimentation, with good reason. The plot, in short, is a front for L'Herbier and company's Art Deco gesamtkunstwerk. Claire, an established opera singer with a reputation for being "inhumane" or "cold" finds a partner in young scientist Einar Norsen, who shows her a way to broadcast her music to the world without having to leave France. Claire's spurned suitor poisons her to death with a snake, and Einar's untested science briefly brings her back to life. Ultimately, these twists and turns are dramatic ways of getting from one fantastic set to another: a geometric dining room (complete with moat and live geese), an indoor "winter garden", a cubist laboratory, a dramatic plinth. The set design and striking unique imagery are the true legacies of this film.
In this chapter, I will examine how gender and sexuality are performed in this film. In this paper, I am using Judith Butler's conception of gender as performance. 2 In the entire "romantic" drama, there is only imagined physical affection between Claire and her supposed paramour, Einar. Since the main characters' houses are both seen as iconic in French silent film and Interwar French architecture, I want to analyze those spaces and attempt to examine the ways in which they bolster their owner's characters. How does the architecture change the understanding of the film? How might it destabilize the expectations of heteronormativity in the film?
In the set of L'Inhumaine, each fantastical room is a set in and of itself, probably unconnected to any other "room" in the film (aside from the foyer connecting to Claire's great hall.) In some films, the director and crew take great pains to make a space that is legible to the audience, an effort that aids the director in telling the story without distractions. For example, in Casablanca (1942) as we can see in Figure 8, Rick's cafe and office are constructed and filmed so that Rick can go upstairs to his office while staying in one take (this happens at around the 17:45 minute mark). This comparison is unfair to L'Inhumaine, of course, since this 1924 silent film represents the vanguard of bespoke set design. Mallet-Stevens once wrote that prior to his time, films were decorated with whatever was lying around the studio and sets, so you would see the same vintage-looking chairs and perspectival-painted canvases in every film prior to his work with L'Herbier.
L'Herbier wanted to make this film an exemplary export of France's culture to the rest of the world. So, he created a gesamtkunstwerk with the help of artists, architects, couturiers, and set designers. L'Inhumaine represents his ideal of cinema total, which was the idea of bringing in all of the arts together to make a film that was a total work of art. We can see this particularly well in Einar's Laboratory, where, in the stills, the arrangement of objects, lines, and shapes, make the room look like a late cubist work; the space is legible as a kind of painting. Cubism is known for taking three-dimensional space and compressing it into a flat surface with an assemblage of shapes to denote spatial complexity. L'Herbier and Léger, who designed Einar's laboratory and film posters, created a three-dimensional space that echoes this compressed cubist space. The set looks completely flat, until Einar and Claire start moving through it, and then the space suddenly has depth, while maintaining its cubist character. (Figure 16) This trick of the set design and camera together alone make a case for viewing this film. The actors are what take this set piece-turned painting, and turn it into an experiential, "real" space by moving through and experiencing it.
Both lead actors, Georgette Leblanc and Jacque Catelain, were varying degrees of queer.
Leblanc was a known bisexual and had a long term, non-monogamous, lesbian relationship with a well-known magazine editor at the time. Catelain has been said to have engaged in a prolonged affair with his longtime friend and collaborator, Marcel L'Herbier. Even if this particular scandal has little evidence to support it, the film provides moments of quietly linking Catelain and queerness. Given the queer histories of these actors, combined with an unconvincing romantic plot, there have been a number of recent analyses of this movie as a queer film. This includes Maureen Shanahan's 2004 essay, "Indeterminate and Inhuman: Georgette Leblanc in L' Inhumaine (1924)." 3 Shanahan's essay attempts to bring Leblanc's considerable contributions into the discussion of the film, which often gets reduced to phrases like, "she was too old for her co-star" and "this movie gives vanity projects a bad name." Shanahan then examines the film through the view of potentially queer contemporary audience, who might have understood quiet references to gay culture, unnoticed by those unfamiliar with it.
But what is missing here is, of course, the architecture. It is clearly a central part of the film's appeal, and yet the architectural spaces are framed in terms of "her space", seen in Figure   9 versus "his space," which can be seen in Figure 16. This is rudimentary, as far as architectural analysis of space goes. The most striking thing about these "home" spaces is how undomesticated they are. In both cases, the homes are primarily spaces of work. In this respect, both of these homes are extensions of the work-driven main characterstheir work is supposed to be their lives. We can also see this in Einar's home, which is entirely devoted to science. It is just a series of artistic-looking laboratories, filled to the brim with dangerous machines and futuristic technologies. The architecture does not underscore the domesticity and heteronormativity of these so-called "homes," but rather, serves to reinforce their individual devotion to their work. Claire enjoys doing intimate performances and entertaining guests on her variety of small stages, while Einar is so enthralled with his work at home that he loses track of time, and is late to the opening dinner party. Both characters are defined by their work, and their respective spaces reflect that passion.
Claire's mansion, seen in Figure 9 is supposed to be sited at the top of a hill in the outskirts of Paris. The exterior was designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens, one of a handful of artists and designers to work on the film. It features a circular driveway for cars, and a variety of geometric volumes, illuminated by glass-block windows, featuring a striking geometric front door, with ornamental patterns on the corners of one of the volumes. The front door has two lights, reminiscent of marquee lights on either side of it, hinting at the theatrics on the interior.
Inside, there is an entryway that leads into a large hall with a fountain that serves as a moat for the central stage, as illustrated by Error! Reference source not found., which is used for both dinner and acrobatic performances. On stage right of the room, there is an elevated stage where a jazz band plays. On stage left, there is an alcove with couches and chairs, so that Claire's guests may enjoy an intimate concert from the singer. The back of the room has two flights of stairs.
There is also a winter garden that connects to the room beyond the stairs. Claire is clearly shown enjoying the performances on the center stage while in the winter garden. Somewhere off of this passageway from the garden to grand hall is Claire's private quarters, with art and furniture. We only see it in isolation from the other rooms, and it is the only room where visitors are not welcome. In an emotional cue to this room being her quarters, it is the only place we see Claire shaken up over the after the initial announcement of Einar's apparent suicide. These private quarters and her dressing room at the opera are the only places she is familiar with and feel safe to lose her composure.
This composure is where the phrase "inhuman" comes from. Claire laughs off Einar's initial declaration of suicide. She easily rebuffs suitors, and chose to go on with the concert, despite being accused of causing Einar's death. She maintains her composure in front of the world, but when faced with her fears in the strange morgue, her imagination and emotions get the best of her, and she cries hysterically until Einar reveals himself to her. Her problem is not that she is ruthless, it is a perception issue. At the end she said to Einar, after he's revived her, in the dramatic scene, seen in Figure 18, "I only did it for the love of… humanity." In Claire's home, Einar is shy, hesitant. After arriving late to dinner, he hovers, unsure of whether or not to be so bold as to barge in right in the middle of dinner.
In her home, Claire is the one in charge. As shown in Error! Reference source not found., we can see that her chair is central and taller than the others, she entertains guests, and has the autonomy to reject them. It is implied that this sort of flirtatious salon is a regular occurrence. The space feels more like a glamorous social club than a home. Like any good entertaining space, there is plenty of room for lots of guests, but the house creates moments of privacy. The winter garden is the best example of this, where the vegetation is so thick, Einar and Claire's conversation there seem all the more intimate. Claire's central stage has a black-andwhite geometric chevron pattern, and when the table is set with her chair, the tallest, in the middle she seems as if she is the Queen of her own chess board, no King needed, but plenty applying for the job. She commands a small army of masked servants, so as to ensure their constant smiling and discretion. Claire employs a number of performers, including a full jazz band, as well as a juggling act and fire-breathers. These performers and servants make sure Claire's party is well orchestrated, with Claire as the stage director and lead talent. The Barnsdall House also features, "various stages and dramatic settings in and around the house". 5 I do not mean to imply that Cavalcanti (the designer of Claire's Grand Hall and winter garden) was necessarily looking at the Hollyhock House as a precedent, but that Friedman's work is a precedent for thinking about Claire Lescot's fictional home. Friedman asserts that Wright and Barnsdall did not see eye-to-eye on what the house was exactly for, with Wright attributing the "failure of the Olive Hill project on Barnsdall's feminine susceptibility to 'advice...'". 6 The Barnsdall House pushed design and programmatic boundaries because an unusual client asked for an unusual space. When the experiment failed, to save his reputation, Wright placed his share of blame on his alternative client, rather than his own contributions to the problem. 7 There are many similarities between the Barnsdall House and Leblanc's patronage of L'Inhumaine.
The designers of L'Inhumaine had similar complaints with the producer and star, Georgette Leblanc. Claude Autant-Lara, according to Shanahan, nicknamed Leblanc, "la dame avec les dollars" and found that L'Herbier seemed to bend over backwards to fit her into the "scenario for L'Inhumaine". 8 L'Herbier himself later said that Leblanc was obsessed with "questions of appearance" and did not partake in the actual production work of the film. In addition, Leblanc was considerably older than her costar, Jacque Catelain, who presented himself as an ephebe, styled as similar to a contemporary ballet dancer. This visually mismatched pair, if the ages were reversed, would be seen as totally acceptable. Still, many of the critiques of the film's narrative focus on the age difference.
When considering for whom the film was designed, the lines of patronage are not nearly so clearly defined as with built architecture. Was Claire's space designed for the character, or was it designed under the influence of Leblanc for Claire? Was Leblanc even consulted? It is hard to say. But, Shanahan points out that Leblanc saw herself in Claire Lescot, to the point of changing the title of the film from Femme de glace to L'Inhumaine, and she referenced her character in one of her autobiographies. Because of this, it is difficult to say to what extent critiques of the film are addressing Leblanc's character and performance, or the very nature of Leblanc's involvement. Perhaps Leblanc's involvement with a prominent woman (Margaret Anderson, also an acquaintance of Aline Barnsdall) plays into the reading of Claire's rejection of suitors to the point of seeming "inhuman." Claire then unconvincingly settles for the man who has styled himself like a popular ballet dancer, in order to access his work, which will benefit her work. There is little wonder the two have no on-screen chemistry to speak of.
Einar's home is referred to as such only once. When Claire arrives the first time, the intertitles call it, "the strange laboratory." This reinforces the fact that Claire has been brought to his home under false pretenses. The second reference to Einar's abode is when she tells the taxi driver to "go to the home of Mr. Norsen." But the language is very interesting. It does appear to operate as both a kind of home and strange laboratory at the same time. This simultaneity of "strange laboratory" and an assumed, but never shown, private space for Einar and his assistants make for an untraditional creation. We never see the private space, but perhaps we are not meant to, for a variety of reasons. A feminist reading might argue that women's privacy is always accessible to more than merely the women who occupy a given space. Perhaps Leblanc asked specifically for private quarters to be in a scene. Einar does not have the motivation for keeping his emotions concealed. We see Catelain go to great lengths to show the audience his inner turmoil. He might not require a display of interiority and privacy, because he is a modern man, consumed by his love for Claire and his work. Einar's living situation was not extrapolated, nor were the exploration of his private quarters necessary to the story. While these spaces are not entirely equivalent, there are enough programmatic similarities that it is worth pointing out when there is a lack.
Einar's house is another geometric array of white blocks. His house is more reserved than Claire's, but that reflects his character's shy countenance and social standing. There is a massive tower above the front door. It was built, shown in the initial shot of the exterior, and then never mentioned again. This is interesting on a more trivial level, given that Mallet-Stevens built a real house with a very similar tower element. There is one double-height window next to the front door, which is up a single step, instead of the small flight of stairs to enter Claire's Mansion. The first time we see the house, Einar is speeding off in his Bugatti sports car to Claire's soirée.
There is a man in a white jumpsuit and a black helmet or mask inexplicably standing and, perhaps, working, on the roof of the house. The inside of Einar's house is far from legible as the exterior. They are entirely separate entities.
The exterior does not, in any way, relate to the supposed interior of the building, though from a production point of view, it is hardly worth the effort to create an almost life-sized model of an ultra-modern home, only to have the stylistic characteristics change the exterior. Film is a space for architectural experimentation. If the exterior does not need to reflect anything but pure imaginary modern architecture, then there is little use in being so perfectionist. In fact, different designers worked on different spaces. Mallet-Stevens, the only architect amongst the set designers, created the exterior models of these houses. Other designers were in charge of different rooms, so it makes sense that the final result is not so much a cohesive built structure, but a series of cutting-edge decorated spaces, brought together by the narrative and camera.
Inside Einar's home, there are at least five distinct rooms: an entrance hall and stair, two laboratories, a room used as a morgue, and the room where the miraculous resurrection takes place. These spaces are full of "scientific" bric-a-brac, and are not as clearly legible as Claire's grand hall with garden plan. In Claire's space, I could easily see how the rooms might be spatially situated. Einar's home is full of twists and turns, stairs for dramatic entrances, as well as curtains, places for dramatic effect. I had to wait for around four different viewing angles in order to fully understand all of the doors and openings in the Morgue, in particular. This might suggest, from a literary perspective, that Einar is more complicated than the audience or Claire expected. Claire assumes he is a cowardly, emotional young man, unworthy of her affection and talents. He devises a devious plan to trick her into intrigue, and then seals her attention with his marvelous television device. He does not need to be masculine, rich, or powerful when he has futuristic technology to woo his beloved.
So, despite this seeming mismatched, this couple, clad in couture, patrons of modern art and science, find solace in their platonic partnership. The story works better in the frame of the 1925 L'Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes, where many of the contributing artists exhibited their most avant-garde work. L'Inhumaine was re-released during the Expo, this time to great acclaim. To designers and artists, the film was about the unlikely pairing of new technologies and the Grand Dame of Art (depicted in the film as a kind of nod to Symbolist Salome or Sarah Bernhardt) to reach the rest of the world, particularly Colonial holdings. When the expectation for traditional romance in the plot is put aside, the story and visuals can speak for themselves, to great effect.
In this chapter, we saw the ways in which L'Herbier and Mallet-Stevens created a world in which the architecture related to the characters' development, almost as if the architecture was representative of the character the same way that costume, dialogue, or any other storytelling device might build the characters. We also explored the ways in which this love was an asexual love, motivated more by a desire to make something new than to make a traditional love story. This applies to both the characters and the filmmakers.

Chapter 3: Villa Noailles
In the previous chapter, we explored architecture that was created for the camera's eye to create space and the reality of the screened world. In this chapter, we will reverse the process, discussing a work that was created and then shaped by the camera's eye.
In this chapter, I will provide a history of the Villa Noailles, then reframe the traditional narratives of the site to include the queer history of its patrons and designers, particularly the contributions of Marie-Laure de Noailles. By examining the Villa Noailles as a site of experimental living, both as a Modernist architectural site as well as a locus of early 20th century counter culture, we can better understand how media and architecture interact with patronage, conceptions of "modernity", and creation of lifestyles outside of heteronormative traditions.
Before we get to this social and cultural analysis, we must understand the site history of the Villa The whole site is supposed to assert the modernity and avant-garde nature of this architectural project in comparison to the ruins, now a folly. These comparisons of modern and traditional can also be seen in the gardens of the house. Next to the house, off of the main lawn, and lower salon, Armenian landscape architect Gabriel Guévrékian (1892-1970) created a "cubist garden" (seen in Error! Reference source not found. and Figure 38), with a variety of plants, mirrors, and fountains to create a new type of garden, in between sculpture, horticulture, and architectural playground. The lower part of the property was given over to the creation of the Parc Saint Bernard, a botanic garden, which was a series of terraces built by Mallet-Stevens, and cultivated by Charles de Noailles. Parc St Bernard was a public garden, and is much more "naturalistic" than the cubist garden closer to the house. 2 It features pathways between the subtle terracing and the vernacular Mediterranean plants, which provided shade to the visitors and exhibited the Viscomte's horticultural expertise and the region's bounty.
Hyères and the Var region in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (Southern France) is known for its balmy weather and its production of fruit and flowers. This was perfect for Charles, an that was used for creating flower arrangements. The salle des fleurs has little more than a sink and a window in it, but it was important enough to be placed centrally in the Villa, and it was painted in the de Stijl style by Theo van Doesburg in 1925. Whether the salle des fleurs was actually used by the staff or the Noailles is unknown to me. However, its inclusion highlights the importance of these flower arrangements were to the hospitality of the couple, as well as enforces the concept of the Villa Noailles intentionally brought nature into their home.
Mallet-Stevens, the architect, understood that his job was to create a space that was not meant to obscure the view but to choose a view, and frame it. The architect is quoted by Léon Deshaires, in his 1928 essay on the Villa Noailles in Art et Décoration, saying the wall surrounding the south terrace, "Like certain Italian convents, it is perforated with large bays which frame a chosen view of the countryside." 6 In this quote, we see Mallet-Stevens as an architect who is keenly aware of the siting of the building, and its owners desire to get the most out of their expansive viewsheds. These perforated "convent" walls are interesting because they operate the same way that a camera's view-finder does, making these "chosen views" the creation of their director, in this case, Mallet-Stevens. This wall presents a point of interaction between Mallet-Stevens' work as a set designer, someone who would need to be aware of how the camera constructs views, and how the viewer might adopt the logic of the camera. The whole house is constructed in this way-a photogenic creation. When one is walking through the building, there are moments when a hallway lines up just so, or a window is placed just so that one can see the curve of the mountain and the sparkle of the distant water. It is certainly labyrinthine, which was both a virtue of the original plan and the result of renovations and additions over the years.
The Villa Noailles was designed by Mallet-Stevens and the couple to be their retreat from the city. Some accounts call it a "winter house," while others call it a "summer residence". This discrepancy is probably due to the occupation of the Villa shifting from its initial inception.
Either way, the consistently balmy Hyères ensured that any season would be comfortable for the Noailles and their guests. The parti, or simple statement, of the Villa Noailles is the conception of a stationary or sometimes stranded ocean liner. The Ocean Liner, especially in the context of modern architecture consciously projecting "modernity" is, of course, an inspiration for change in Le Corbusier's 1923 manifesto Vers une architecture, in the section entitled, "Eyes that do not see, part I: Ocean Liners". In the essay (which was published in 1920, three years earlier than this edited volume) Le Corbusier discusses the ways in which architecture has stagnated while visually encouraging comparison to the design of ocean liners, which use space efficiently and are not beholden to things like tradition and decoration, or the architectural academic tradition. If we combine this ocean-liner aesthetic with the influence of the Josef Hoff we start to see the Villa's visual points of inspiration. The central tower, a common feature in Mallet-Stevens' paper and cinematic architecture, was an important element to Mallet-Stevens's design at Hyères. We can see an iteration of this central tower in the 1924 film L'Inhumaine where the tower of Einar Norsen's home is so large the camera has to pan down to see the actors. This experiment is different than the experimental central tower of his paper architecture because the camera acts as an eye to create a way of simulating the experience of looking at such a tall tower.
In a 1977 letter, the Viscomte recalls the original version of the "narrow square tower" decoration: He had imagined decorating the house with a narrow square towerwhich I approved ofbut wanted to finish off its white vertical with something dark. Which resulted in a cantilevered roof with an empty space underneath. After three years, I told him that I could not get used to this roof which resembled a visor on a helmet and with his agreement the roof was removed. The tower has been left the same, with two rectangular openings which allow one to enjoy the view. 7 This kind of negotiation and thematization is likely when dealing with matters of experimental architecture. Sometimes what works on paper or film may not be appealing to live with on a regular basis, as is evidenced in this letter. Keeping in mind that the Villa Noailles was Mallet-Stevens's first building commission, experiments like the tower's cantilevered visor were exactly that-experiments. This negotiation between the patrons and the architect is exactly the kind of work that Friedman uses as evidence to explore the ways in which the patrons in classic modern architectural buildings shaped the programs of the forms of the buildings. 8 The Noailles envisioned a lifestyle shaped by the ocean liner: a life of luxury, exercise, heliotropism, celebration of nature, and collectivism. 9 What started out as a small house retreat ballooned into a forty-plus room destination for the Noailles and their guests. 10 These guests fall into certain categories: designers, Surrealists, and sculptors. There are also mentions of poets, painters, and musicians who visited, but in terms of the creation of the Villa's modernist gesamtkunstwerk aesthetic, these are the guests that fall under our purview. According to Kim Knowles in her book on Man Ray's filmmaking, the invitation to Man Ray was to stay the winter at the Villa in exchange to creating the film. 11 This aspect of the villa as a private retreat for patrons to extend hospitality in exchange for services further reinforces the Villa's role as a set for the Noailles to follow their personal passions, rather than focusing on conservative domestic bliss.
These guests were often artists the Noailles were patronizing in one way or another.
Some of these artists, like the previously mentioned Theo van Doesburg, were working on-site at the Villa. These artistic guests, many of whom were a part of Mallet-Stevens' circle (and a part of the professional union he founded, the Union Artistes Modern, or UAM) and recommended 8 Documentary, Short, (1929). 14 Knowles, "From Mallarmé to Mallet-Stevens." Charles was the initial arbiter of the taste for modern art in the relationship and the one with whom Mallet-Stevens exchanged letters with, it was Marie-Laure who had the desire and drive to make her name associated with the patronage of modern and avant-garde art. 15 It was Marie-Laure who invited Man Ray to create Les Mystères du Château de Dé, not Charles. Interestingly, this patronage and publicity extends far beyond their Hyères retreat.
This type of publicity: the lavish and grand parties (Meulemans describes them as "legendary"), aggressively funding and galavanting with a cadre of young (and often queer) artists of the avant-garde, created quite a bit of high society infamy for Marie-Laure. The story goes, that her boldness started in 1929 when she caught her husband in bed with the Villa's exercise instructor, and she ceased to be timid. The fact of the matter was that the Villa was never intended to be a domestic space. Often narratives balancing the Noailles and the Villa tend make sure to place the inception of the Villa right after Marie-Laure had her first child in 1924.
By 1929, after she'd had her second child, the sexual portion of their relationship was over. 16 After that, she kept a string of young, usually queer, men in her orbit, nurturing their rising artistic stardom. But the children are missing in the narrative of the Villa Noailles, at least. This lack of heteronormative or reproductive labor expected of the Villa and its inhabitants allowed for non-traditional ways of living to take shape. When one is free from reproductive labor, as the wealthy élites were, the choice of lifestyles becomes much broader. Charles, in his spaces (not just the Villa Noailles), was allowed to be both sexually active and work on his passion of horticulture. Marie-Laure, once free from the restrictions of traditional marriage, created a reputation for being a bizarre woman and muse of the Surrealists. 15 Meulemans, "Exposing the Villa Noailles." 16 du Plessix Gray, "The Surrealists' Muse." One of the later additions (around 1928-9) to the house added a swimming pool, a squash court, and, a hair salon. Some say that the Villa was the first building in France to have a pool with a roof over it, and one of the few private residences with exercise facilities. 17 In many accounts, including both (extant) movies filmed at the Villa Noailles were partaking in the mass ornament of exercise. This is especially clear in Jacque Manuel's film Biceps et Bijoux (1928), which features scenes of around eight people, wearing identical swimming suits, play games with exercise equipment (See, Figure 42). 18 They put their feet together into a star shape, sitting on the porch, passing a number of heavy-looking balls around the circle, creating patterns and geometries with their bodies. This gender-neutral approach, where all participants wear the same clothes, and are not individualized, is different than contemporary films like L'Inhumaine (part of Mallet-Stevens circle) where the genders of the main characters are so clearly defined and reinforced through the narrative and decoration of the film. Here, Manuel, a L'Herbier protégé, and therefore in the Mallet-Stevens circle, creates a film that highlights the Villa's experimental machine for experimental living. In a small, intimate, loose film like Biceps et Bijoux, the audience is inherently different. Those who would disapprove of the bacchanalian lifestyle at the Villa were not likely to be welcome anyway. That convent screen with viewfinders were there to create vistas for the guests of the Villa, and to create privacy from potential voyeurs. The nature of privacy and publicity at the Villa Noailles is complicated. The nature of the house as a "stranded ocean liner" make it seem like the Villa was a private, self-sufficient space, existing apart from the rest of the town, the Vicomte and Vicomtesse aided by their on-hand staff of twenty to seem cut off from the rest of the town. But the very nature of the building, in the ruins 17 Dunworth, "The de Noailles as Collectors and Patrons." N Jacques Manuel, Biceps et Bijoux, 1928. of an abbey, this flamboyant cubist house dominates the viewshed of the town, and is easily seen from various points around the town. The Villa's main goal of blending into nature was easily perceived from those invited into the walls of the retreat, but from the rest of the town, the house, a light gray mass of blocks was almost always in their view. As the trees, and rest of the town have grown in, the house's dominant position has retreated somewhat. But the impulse for both publicity and privacy created a discursive effect on the house between its benefactors and its development.
We have lost some of the sense of privacy and intimacy at the Villa Noailles in the years between its role as a private entity and public gallery and museum. For instance, what I had assumed to be garages, underneath the front terrace, are shown by Manuel in Biceps et Bijoux to be elegantly appointed sitting rooms, cleverly put into the lower section of the house to keep these rooms cool and closer to the gardens than the upper pool and sunbathing area. This kind of quiet traditional space seems at odds with the publicity of the pool and sunbathing porch, where any noise made there can be heard by the rest of the complex. But this shows how photographs nor film cannot replace interacting with the architectural medium in the flesh.
By examining the patrons of the Villa Noailles, and why it was built, we can see an example of architectural patronage of non-reproductive spaces with the intent to have a place to follow passions, whether that was sexual, horticultural, or artistic. This new way of living, of course, was often temporary, so the experimental nature of the building's creation was mitigated by its secondary status of occupation for the Noailles, their art, and their guests. We see how Charles de Noailles' passion for horticulture and nature was a generative force in the theoretical conception of the building and grounds, while Marie-Laure was the creative force behind the modernist architectural and decorative project in the first place. Their desire for a space of artistic patronage, production, and publicity was inherent in Mallet-Stevens' design. We can see how Mallet-Stevens took this inaugural commission and building as a chance to experiment with elements of architecture he had explored in media architecture like cinema, models, and illustrations. Mallet-Stevens and the Noailles created a relationship where the experiments could be critiqued and remodeled to better suit those who experienced the space on a daily basis. This site is worthy of attention for at least these reasons, as it is a site of important artistic creation and patronage. Considering how the built environment shapes spaces for lifestyles outside of the heterosexual norms and how architecture and artistic patronage can bolster one another is an effort entirely worth pursuing.

State of the Villa Noailles
It has only been until recently that the Villa Noailles itself has been recuperated.

State of L'Inhumaine
In 2016, Lobster Films rereleased L'Inhumaine in high definition, complete with recolored film and a recreated version of the lost integral percussive score by Milhaud. Increased accessibility combined with the moment of rerelease increased awareness, prompting a new set of reviews to marvel over the aesthetics and denigrate the plot. But increased awareness and accessibility translates into more scholarship on the understudied queer aspects of the film, and Interwar cinema in general.

State of Mallet-Stevens
Studying Mallet-Stevens' work can help scholars understand how the canon of architectural greatness was constructed, and the implications of relegation on a work. His example also helps us understand how criticism, gender and sexuality dynamics within culture, especially in the face of experimentation that rejects canonical hegemony to create new forms and representations in architecture can impact the career and legacy of architects. His work also accesses questions of how media can reauthor space and how we understand architecture that has more visibility and access in two-dimensional print media (i.e. photography and fashion media) or multi-sensory media like film than in an experiential sense.
Most importantly, Mallet-Stevens' legacy and work accesses questions of how the camera and media can create experimental spaces, especially ones where there is no "real" space that it is referencing. Mallet-Stevens' early work intersects with interwar queer culture to open up discussions of how media and architecture interact and promote queer occupation of space.
Most importantly, my thesis aims to show relationship between film and architecture by exploring the intersection of the two presented by Mallet-Stevens' work. In L'Inhumaine, I explored the way the camera created a cohesive space. In chapter two, I explored the Villa Noailles, which was not created for the camera, but created spaces that lent itself to the camera's eye regardless of Mallet-Stevens' insistence that his architecture was not equivalent to his set design. It also explored the ways in which subjective architecture, in both the film and the Villa Noailles were representative, embodied aspects of its patrons. Finally, I tied the thematic aspects of the two case studies through a feminist reading of the occupation of these spaces by their queer characters.
While I did not secure Mallet-Stevens' place in the canon, I hope I have shown a way in which his work might open up unique avenues into the relationship between architecture and the camera through the way that the Villa Noailles was transformed from a series of winding rooms into a series of striking stages for the films of Man Ray and Jacques Manuel. Architecture is a filmic media, and Mallet-Stevens' architecture shows that the relationship between film, set design, and architecture is a symbiotic one. To continue separating the two media is to avoid the new ways of seeing how the realm of the screen changes our relationship to the constructed environment. Figure 1: Posters, L'Inhumaine (1924) Left: Poster for L'Inhumaine, designed by Djo Bourgeois, 1924 Right: Poster for L'Inhumaine, featuring Georgette Leblanc   View of Entrance Hall, Villa Noailles, Thérèse Bonney, 1928 Photograph by Thérèse Bonney Dining room to the left, Salle de Fleurs to the right, and the room situated in the center-right was Charles' Study, also known as the Rose Room Showed an attempt to flatten the space of the room by painting flat panes of color across different surfaces like walls and from wall to ceiling.