Kenwin
Véronique Goël
1996 - 85 min - 16 mm - Couleur et Noir & Blanc - Suisse

The Kenwin villa in La Tour-de-Peilz on the shores of Lake Geneva was built in 1930 by Hermann Henselmann, a 25-year-old architect from Berlin, for Winifred Ellerman (Bryher) and Kenneth Macpherson. A monument of modernist utopia, an extraeneous element rejected by its environment and at the same time an open space, it was designed to be the scene of new, creative interpersonal relations.
Bryher, the writer and Macpherson, the British film maker lived here together for several years with their American poet friend H. D. (Hilda Doolittle-Aldington) and her daughter Perdita before separating. Bryher lived in the villa after the war until he died in 1983. The film provides insight into the story with archive material and pictures of the villa as it stands today.