Marcel Breuer

Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture

1902 Marcel Lajos Breuer is born on May 22 in the Hungarian town of Pécs.

1920 After graduating from high school, Breuer receives a scholarship to attend the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, which he leaves after only a few weeks. Following an apprenticeship at a Viennese architect’s studio, he applies to the Bauhaus in Weimar.

1920-23 Completes training in the cabinet making workshop of the Bauhaus in Weimar. He produces numerous designs in wood, including his African Chair (1921), furniture for the Sommerfeld House (1921), and the Slatted Chair (from 1922).

1923 Breuer’s is represented with several furniture designs in the Bauhaus ‘Haus am Horn’ exhibition in Weimar. The exhibition included his journeyman project, a dressing table.
Together with Farkas Molnár and Georg Muche, Breuer organizes an initiative to establish an architectural department at the Bauhaus, with initial architectural designs follow.

1924 After his journeyman examination and a short period spent working in a Paris architectural studio, Breuer returns to the Bauhaus. He is appointed as a ‘young master’ and head of the cabinet making workshop.

1925-31 Commissioned to design the furnishings for the new Bauhaus building in Dessau. During this time, he begins the initial development of his first tubular steel chair B3 (Wassily) and the stool B9. In the following years, he creates numerous furniture pieces in tubular steel.

1927 Establishment of his own company Standard-Möbel, which mass-produces his early tubular steel designs. Breuer realizes various interiors, including model dwellings at the Weißenhof estate in Stuttgart and Berlin apartment for the theatre director Piscator. Breuer designs the ‘BAMBOS Houses’ for the young masters at the Bauhaus. Project is never
executed for financial reasons.

1928 Along with Gropius, Bayer, and Moholy-Nagy, Breuer leaves the Bauhaus to open an independent architectural practice in Berlin where he primarily produces apartment interiors,
furniture, and exhibition designs.

1930 Together with Gropius, Moholy-Nagy, and Bayer, Breuer participates in the exhibition of the Deutscher Werkbund in Paris.

1931 At the Bauausstellung exhibition in Berlin, Breuer shows a ‘70m2 Apartment’ and the ‘House for a Sportsman.’

1932 With the Harnischmacher House in Wiesbaden, Breuer realises for the first time a design for a new building.
Development of the first aluminium furniture, which is mass-produced by the Swiss company Embru starting in 1934.

1932-36 Designed in collaboration with Alfred and Emil Roth, the Doldertal Apartments are built in Zurich.

1934 At the Museum of Applied Arts in Zurich, Breuer delivers the programmatic lecture: ‘Where do we stand?’

1935 Breuer follows his friend and mentor Gropius to England where he enters a partnership with the architect F.R.S. Yorke in London.
For the British company, Isokon, he designs diverse furniture pieces in plywood.

1936 Design of an exhibition pavilion for the furniture producer Gane. Develops plans for a ‘Garden City of the Future’ with Yorke.

1937 Breuer emigrates to America where his connections to Gropius get him a teaching position on the architecture faculty at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Gropius and Breuer found a joint architectural practice that remains in existence through 1941 and primarily develops plans for single-family homes.

1938-39 Design and construction of Breuer’s first house for himself in Lincoln, Massachusetts.

1941 Gropius and Breuer dissolve their partnership. Because of World War II, Breuer is only able to realize a small number of projects in the following years.

1946 Breuer gives up his teaching position and relocates practice to New York City.

1946-48 Robinson House in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

1947-48 Design and construction of Breuer’s second house for his family in New Canaan, Connecticut. The design achieves renown due to such striking design features as the widely projecting balcony.

1948/49 The Museum of Modern Art in New York organizes a travelling exhibition on Marcel Breuer, accompanied by a monograph by Peter Blake. He constructs a demonstration house in the Museum Garden, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors.

1952-58 Together with Pier Luigi Nervi and Bernard Zehrfuss, Breuer receives the commission to design the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, resulting in his international breakthrough.

1953-68 Breuer begins with the plans for his first monastery project, St. John’s Abbey, and the affiliated university complex in Collegeville, Minnesota.

1955-57 De Bijenkorf Department Store in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

1956 Founding of the Marcel Breuer and Associates, Architects practice in New York. Long-time employees such as Hamilton Smith, Herbert Beckhard, Murray Emslie and Robert Gatje
become associates of the firm.

1956-59 Villa Staehelin in Feldmeilen near Zurich, Switzerland.

1956-63 Breuer designs a convent complex for the Benedictine Sisters of Annunciation Priory in Bismarck, North Dakota.

1959-61 Design of the Begrisch Hall lecture hall on New York University’s University Heights Campus.
Overall planning lasted from 1959-70.

1960-62 IBM Research Center in La Gaude, France (subsequently expanded several times).

1961-76 Development of the Flaine ski resort in the French Alps.

1963-67 Construction of the Koerfer House in Moscia, Ticino, Switzerland.

1964 Breuer opens an office in Paris. Breuer’s long-time employees Hamilton Smith, Robert F. Gatje, and Herbert Beckhard become official partners in the firm, with Tician Papachristou
joining later.

1964-66 Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the St. Francis de Sales Church in Muskegon, Michigan.

1968-72 Baldegg Convent, Switzerland.

1972 The Metropolitan Museum of Art honours Breuer with a retrospective, the first the museum had ever devoted to a living architect. The exhibition travels to Paris and Berlin.

1976 Breuer retires from professional practice for health reasons.

1977-80 As one of Breuer’s last designs, the Central Public Library in Atlanta is built, the initial plans for which go back to 1971.

1981 Marcel Breuer dies on July 1 in New York.