| Modern in Melbourne 2 |
| Melbourne Architecture 1950-75 |
| International Influences |
 |
| Marcel Breuer |
| Marcel
Breuer link 1 |
| Selected
Projects |
|
Marcel
Breuer
b. Hungary 1902. He studied at Allami Foreaiskola, at Pecs and
late in 1920 commenced study at the Weimar Bauhaus under Walter
Gropius. In 1924 he graduated from the Bauhaus and took over
the direction of the Bauhaus furniture workshop where he taught
until 1928. In 1928 he left the Bauhaus to practise as an architect
and interior designer in Berlin. 1933 after Hitler became Chancellor,
Breuer emigrated first to England where he joined FRS Yorke in
partnership. In 1937 when Walter Gropius was appointed Chairman
of the Department of Architecture at Harvard he invited Breuer
to join him on the Faculty where Breuer became an Associate Professor.
Breuer and Gropius formed a partnership which lasted until 1941.
He operated a New York practice from 1946 until his retirement
in 1976. Both Breuer's teaching and his completed buildings profoundly
influenced his students who included Philip Johnson, Paul Rudolph
and of course Harry Seidler. Seidler was of course much influenced
by Breuer's houses completed during the 1940's. Breuer's early
projects in the United States were largely domestic, but in 1952
he worked with Nervi and Zehrfuss as architect for the UNESCO
headquarters in Paris. This prestigious work carried his practice
into the international field.
Breuer's buildings were always distinguished by an attention
to detail and a clarity of expression. Considered one of the
last true functionalist architects, Breuer helped shift the bias
of the Bauhaus from "Arts & Crafts" to "Arts
& Technology". Many pieces of modern, tubular steel
furniture in use today can trace their origins back to the Breuer
experiments of the mid-20's.
Breuer died in New York in 1981.The UNESCO headquarters building
in Paris greatly influenced the later more lyrical [or decorative]
commercial modernism which typified the 1950's.
Dennis Sharp.
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Architects and Architecture.
New York: Quatro Publishing, 1991. ISBN 0-8230-2539-X. NA40.I45.
p28-29.
text source
Great Buildings Online
Return
to Melbourne Architecture 1950-75 text return to front page
|
Breuer House I
Marcel Breuer - Lincoln,
Massachusetts -1939
The Creator's Words
"When
stone is used in a wall, the aim is not to evoke some notion of
rock, but to build a clear-cut slab-made of stone because stone
is a good and durable and texturally pleasant material,... It
should be clear that this is a wall built by a mason, executing
drawings with dimensions and a given geometry; it is not a grotto
or part of a romantic anachronism.
"The structure is simultaneously developed with the plan.
The thinking about form and detail is all part of the same process:
the design. I am as much interested in the smallest detail as
in the whole structure."
-Marcel Breuer. from Cranston Jones, captions and introduction.
Marcel Breuer: Buildings and Projects 1921-1961. p21, 26.
Breuer
House II
Marcel Breuer - New
Canaan, Connecticut -1948
Commentary
"Marcel
Breuer's own house-Breuer House I-was built on a hillside. It
was a small yet very open house, based on a rectangular plan,
with the main living accommodation on the upper floor. A workshop
was situated beneath it, together with other ancillary domestic
accommodation."
-Dennis Sharp.
Twentieth Century Architecture: a Visual History. p165.
"The structural theme of this hillside house is the daring
yet disciplined use of the cantilever. Breuer had been experimenting
with using frame walls as trusslike members, and here this potential
inherent in wood frame construction is exploited to the utmost.
The building cantilevers from its whitewashed concrete base in
four directions. To reinforce the truss effect of the frame walls,
Breuer has employed diagonal boarding. It is noteworthy that the
resulting floating appearance of the house has been achieved without
the use of steel structural members. Tension cables of standard
marine rigging support the balcony."
-from Cranston Jones, captions and introduction. Marcel Breuer:
Buildings and Projects 1921-1961. p222.
The Creator's Words
"Architecture
is changing today, and while this is nothing new-change was and
is part of the philosophy of a new architecture-we can perhaps
say that tendencies which have been there from the beginning,
but latent, are appearing on the surface with an accelerated speed
and vigor. At this moment I am particularly interested to see
which of these changes are due to moods or fashions and which
are due to the developments of a creative and long-term drive
behind our work. Is there such a thing as a long-term direction
in modern architecture?
"I believe there is-with allowances for individual waves,
for the ups and downs, rights and lefts, forwards and backwards
of thoughts, and with allowances for our errors and for our desperate
doubts about progress. Still, I believe in progress. I am convinced
that a factory worker of today with his five-day week and seven-hour
day, with his automobile, or bicycle, or bus, or even subway,
with his children in schools, and with his bathroom, has better
tools for happiness than a factory worker of two hundred or two
thousand years ago. He probably does not know yet how to use those
tools to full advantage. He may yet have to learn how to balance
and coordinate the achievements of progress. But in any case,
the availability of the components is a positive factor."
-Marcel Breuer. from Cranston Jones, captions and introduction.
Marcel Breuer: Buildings and Projects 1921-1961. p9.
Geller House
Marcel Breuer - Lawrence,
Long Island, New York -1945
Commentary
"In 1943, Breuer had developed a plan for a house which
he termed 'binuclear', separating the living-dining-kitchen area
from the sleeping area. The two wings of the house are connected
by an entrance hallway. The Geller house was the first of these
to be built, and is an exciting complex. Both the house and the
adjacent guest house have 'butterfly roofs' which slope inward
and are centrally drained. The main house and guest house are
so positioned that they created semi-enclosed, courtyard-like
areas which invite outdoor living. Many of Breuer's houses since
have employed this 'binuclear' principle."
-Peter Blake. Marcel Breuer, Architect and Designer. p89.
The Creator's Words
" '...The
art of architectural composition...lies in assembling simple elemental
forms to arrive at basic solutions. The space bounded by such
elements can be free and fluent, connected both vertically and
horizontally, but the components encompassing it will be crystallic,
man-made -forms that differ from other natural forms, though they
are part of the same composition: wood against metal, space against
void, a cube against a tree.' "
-Marcel Breuer. from Cranston Jones, captions and introduction.
Marcel Breuer: Buildings and Projects 1921-1961. p21.
Whitney Museum
Marcel Breuer - New
York, New York - 1966
Notes "Whitney
Museum of American Art". massing stepping out above sculpture
court. A controversial addition design proposal by Michael Graves
was not built.
Commentary
"For its third building in 35 years, the Whitney Museum
chose a 100 x 125 foot site in the art gallery district of mid-town
Madison Avenue where, among an environment of tall apartment buildings,
a new, distinctive, and significant home was to be located. The
housing of changing exhibitions rather than a permanent collection
has determined the new museum's philosophy, planning, and details.
Three of its floors have large, open gallery spaces with suspended
precast concrete open grid ceilings, detailied to receive movable
wall panels and flexible lighting that can be rearranged for each
new show. Outside, the cube-like building is sheathed with granite."
-Tician Papachristou. Marcel Breuer: New Buildings and Projects.
p122.
"This distinctive museum makes the most of its small corner
site. Upper floors, affording maximum gallery space within, cantilever
outward, importantly over its shadowy forecourt; seven windows-irregularly
spaced trapezoids that vary in size-mark its granite facade like
symbolic eyes."
-from Sylvia Hart Wright. Sourcebook of Contemporary North American
Architecture: From Postwar to Postmodern. p15-16.
The Creator's Words
"What
should a museum look like, a museum in Manhattan? Surely it should
work, it should fulfill its requirements, but what is its relationship
to the New York landscape? What does it express, what is its architectural
message?
"It is easier to say first what it should not look like.
It should not look like a business or office building, nor should
it look like a place of light entertainment. Its form and its
material should have identity and weight in the neighborhood of
50-story skyscrapers, of mile long bridges, in the midst of the
dynamic jungle of our colorful city. It should be an independent
and self- relying unit, exposed to history, and at the same time
it should transform the vitality of the street into the sincerity
and profundity of art."
-Marcel Breuer. from Tician Papachristou. Marcel Breuer: New Buildings
and Projects. p14-15.