B D U _ d e p a r t m e n t o f ARCHITECTURE

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IIIS e m e s t e r A s s i g n m e n t

b y A b r h a m z e b e n e

A case study on architect and designer Marcel Breuer

Marcel Breuer

b i b l i o g ra p hy

Marcel Lajos Breuer – Lajkó to his friends – was born on 21 May 1902 in the provincial city of Pecs, Hungary.

Breuer left his hometown at the age of 18 in search of artistic training and was one of the first and youngest students at the Bauhaus.

He was recognized by Gropius as a significant talent and was quickly put at the head of the Carpentry Shop.

Marcel Breuer (1902-1981) numbers among the most important and prolific designers of the twentieth century.

Today he is best known for his furniture. The tubular steel pieces created by Breuer during his tenure at the Bauhaus and during the following years, which have enjoyed unflagging popularity for decades, must be counted among the great classics of modernism.

Wassily Chair/Club armchair; first version Standard- 1927

One of the masters of Modernism, architect and furniture designer, Breuer extended the sculptural vocabulary he had developed in the carpentry shop at the Bauhaus into a personal architecture that made him one of the world’s most popular architects at the peak of 20th-Century design.

Marcel Breuer

I D EO LO G Y & L I S T O F

P R O J E C T S

Breuer , 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.

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.

Breuer's wassily chair (1928)

Marcel Breuer's chair (1928) reflects the universal appeal movement through its lack of 'decoration' and timeless appeal. The chair strictly follows its function and does not include elements which are not necessary for its purpose.

Marcel Breuer - East fire stair at the UNESCO Secretariat, Paris 1953. 

Begrisch Hall, New York University 1961 Marcel Breuer

  Marcel Breuer’s IBM La Gaude, Building 1,

1962

Marcel Breuer: Church of St Francis of Sales, Muskegon, Michigan, (1964-1966, with Herbert Beckhard).

1966: Marcel Breuer’s Whitney Museum of American Art, Manhattan

Atlanta Central Public Library, Atlanta, Georgia, (1977-1980, with Hamilton P. Smith).-designed in the brutalist architectural style

Pirelli Building, New Haven, CT - Marcel Breuer,

Chamberlain Cottage / Marcel Breuer

Marcel Breuer

ARCH IT ECTU RAL D ESCR IPT ION

OF SELEC TED PRO JECT S

Begrisch Hall

Begrisch Hall, composed of reinforced exposed concrete, is a building that mirrors the form and function of its interior.

The building is entered through a small exterior staircase or an enclosed walkway coming from an adjacent building.

Begrisch Hall is a brutalist style of building with trapezoidal plan - the term brutalist coming from the French "beton brut" referring to exposed, unfinished concrete.

Begrisch Hall Section

Completed in 1961, Begrisch Hall stands in the southwest section of the campus of Bronx Community College, located in University Heights.

Begrisch Hall Entrance

Chamberlain cottage Nestled among the massive pine woods

of Massachusetts, the 1941 cottage designed for the Chamberlains consists of two rectangular floor levels – a basement in beautifully natural stone masonry that rises above the sloped ground strata, and a timber framed main floor, on which all the living spaces are allocated

Chamberlain Cottage by Marcel Breuer architect, at Wayland, Massachusetts, 1940, 

The idea of a free floor plan, raised above the soil and thus unrestricted by the terrain can be followed to Bauhaus. Rear left right front elevation

Chamberlain _ Upper PlanChamberlain _ lower Plan

Chamberlain _ front elevation

Right elevation

sectionrear elevation

Front elevation

Whitney Museum · New York located at the corner of Madison Avenue

and 75th Street, served as the Whitney's third home.

He worked with Hamilton Smith, creating a strong modernist statement in a neighborhood of traditional limestone, brownstone, and brick row houses and postwar apartment buildings. 

Manhattan, New York city, New York, United StatesProject Year: 1963-1966

façade characterized by recessed entrance

Whitney Museum, section

Front elevation left elevation

Front elevation

Ground floor plan Left elevation

3rd Floor plan 2nd Floor plan 1st Floor plan

4th Floor plan section section

Together with the lighting effect, exposed, unfinished concrete Creates both natural & modern interior spaces.

The Museum have large and distinguishable open gallery spaces, with suspended precast concrete grid ceilings. These are each detailed to receive movable wall panels and flexible lighting.

Designed in Breuer’s distinct modern style, the museum stands out against its neighboring facades of traditional limestone, brownstone, and brick

Its staircase-form, similarly described as an inverted ziggurat of granite stones brings light into the gallery spaces through upside-down windows on the exterior.

THE END