Marcel Breuer

Born in Pécs, Hungary, Marcel Breuer (1902–1981) began studying art in Vienna and then moved to the State Bauhaus in Weimar from 1920 to 1924, where he completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter. In 1925, he took over the management of the carpentry workshop at the Bauhaus as a "young master". At this time, Breuer was influenced by holistic movements such as Constructivism and De Stijl. After partly expressionist beginnings and furniture made of wood, he developed some groundbreaking furniture designs made of tubular steel, initially as a private project and then at and partly for the Bauhaus Dessau, the prototypes of which he realized with neighboring companies such as Junkers. In 1928, Breuer left the Bauhaus because he wanted more freedom and wanted to continue his experiments. He sought closer contact with industry, including Thonet. He settled in Berlin as an architect and now worked primarily in the field of interior design. In 1929, the Standard-Möbel company, which he co-founded in 1927 and which produced his first tubular steel furniture, was taken over by Thonet. Breuer now worked for Thonet for several years. In the Thonet card catalog of 1930/31, a comprehensive tubular steel collection, largely influenced by Breuer, impressively unfolds its breadth. Marcel Breuer came to the USA in 1937 via Budapest (1933) and London (1935), where he worked as an architect. During this time, he developed plywood and aluminum furniture. At the suggestion of Walter Gropius, he became a lecturer and later a professor of architecture at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Breuer and Gropius ran a joint architectural office, and from 1941 his own. In 1946 he moved it to New York. His most famous designs include the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (1966, reopened as "The Met Breuer" in 2016) and the UNESCO headquarters in Paris (1958, with Bernard Zehrfuss and Pier Luigi Nervi). Breuer is considered one of the central figures in the history of architecture and design.