Breuer, Marcel

Marcel Breuer, in full Marcel Lajos Breuer, (born May 21, 1902, Pécs, Hungary—died July 1, 1981, New York City, New York, U.S.), architect and designer, one of the most-influential exponents of the International Style; he was concerned with applying new forms and uses to newly developed technology and materials in order to create an art expressive of an industrial age.

Breuer, Marcel: Wassily chair

From 1920 to 1928 Breuer studied and then taught at the Bauhaus school of design, where modern principles were applied to the industrial as well as to the fine arts. There he followed the lead of Walter Gropius in espousing unit construction—i.e., the combination of standardized units to form a technologically simple but functionally complex whole. In 1925, inspired by the design of bicycle handlebars, he invented the tubular metal chair; his original version is known as the Wassily chair.

In 1928 Breuer began the private practice of architecture in Berlin. For the Swiss architectural historian Sigfried Giedion, he designed the Dolderthal Apartments, Zürich (built 1934–36). During his two years of architectural practice in London, in partnership with F.R.S. Yorke, he designed for the Isokon firm some laminated plywood furniture that became widely imitated. In 1937 he went to Harvard University to teach architecture, and from 1938 to 1941 he practiced with Gropius in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Their synthesis of Bauhaus internationalism with New England regional aspects of wood-frame building greatly influenced domestic architecture throughout the United States. Examples of this style of building were Breuer’s own house at Lincoln, Massachusetts (1939), and the Chamberlain cottage at Wayland, Massachusetts (1940).

Breuer moved to New York City in 1946 and thereafter attracted numerous major commissions: the Sarah Lawrence College Theatre, Bronxville, New York (1952); the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Headquarters, Paris (1953–58; with Pier Luigi Nervi and Bernard Zehrfuss); St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota (1953–61); De Bijenkorf department store, Rotterdam (1955–57); the International Business Machines (IBM) research centre, La Gaude, France (1960–62); and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City (completed 1966); and the headquarters for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Washington, D.C. (1963–68). He retired from practice in 1976.