Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Author
Wilk, Christopher
Date
1981
Publisher
The Museum of Modern Art
ISBN
0870702645, 0870702637
Exhibition URL
www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1782
Christopher Wilk
The Museum of Modern Art
192 PAGES, 201 ILLUSTRATIONS S22.50
MARCEL BREUER
Furniture and Interiors
by Christopher Wilk
Introduction by J. Stewart Johnson
7 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
9 INTRODUCTION
35 BAUHAUS DESSAU,1925-28
37 First Tubular-Steel Furniture
41 Furniture in the School Buildings
45 Bauhaus Masters' Houses
52 Tubular-Steel Furniture and Standard-Mobel
57 Interiors, 1926-28
66 Tubular Steel and the New Interior
70 The Tubular-SteelCantilevered Chair
71 Breuer's First Cantilevered Designs
73 Anton Lorenz and the Business of
Tubular Steel
78 Table Designs, 1928
82 Furniture Designs, 1928-29
84 ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE IN
BERLIN, 1928-31
85 Interiors
103 Furniture
108 TRAVELS AND DESIGN WORK
1931-34
110 Harnismacher House
112 Switzerland
114 Wohnbedarf Furniture
115 Aluminum Furniture, 1932-34
118 The Chair Designs
181 CONCLUSION
184 APPENDIXES
1. Tubular-Steel Designs Misattributed to
Breuer
2. The House Interior, by Marcel Breuer
187 NOTES
191 BIBLIOGRAPHY
10
early essays in furniture, not surprisingly In 1932, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., attempted to
revealed close affinities to the ideas of de Stijl, codify the principles and describe the charac
particularly as they were articulated in the teristics of the new modernist architecture,
designs of Gerrit Rietveld, whose work was which he dubbed "the International Style." In
well known at the Bauhaus. Breuer, however, his foreword to the catalog of "Modern Archi
turned decisively away from these board-and- tecture, International Exhibition!' a show or
stick constructions when he got the idea of ganized by Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell
bending the metal tubes out of which his Hitchcock, Jr., for The Museum of Modern Art,
bicycle's handlebars were made into a struc Barr stated that "the aesthetic principles of
ture that could support a seat and back and the International Style are based primarily
become a chair frame. The club chair that upon the nature of modern materials and
grew out of this idea was the first of a num structure!' and went on to explain:
ber of designs for tubular-steel furniture he
Slendersteel posts and beams,and concrete
made over the next six years, many of which reinforced by steel have made possiblestruc
were to become classics. But impressive as tures of skeleton-likestrength and lightness.
may be Breuer's individual designs, it is the
...the modern architect working in the new
idea behind them that assures him his place style conceivesof his building .. .as a skele
as the most influential designer of furniture ton enclosed by a thin light shell. He thinks
in the twentieth century. in terms of volume—of space enclosed by
There seems to have been an instant rec planes or surfaces—as opposed to mass
ognition among architects and designers that and solidity. This principle of volume leads
bent tubular steel was the ideal material for him to make his walls seemthin flat surfaces
by eliminating moldings and by making his
modernist furniture. Photographs of Breuer's windows and doors flush with the surface.
club chair were published even before he had
a chance to fully work out its design, and as Barr pointed out that "both vertical and hori
soon as the news got round, other designers zontal repetition and .. .flexible asymmetry"
seem to have decided that they too should try were "natural concomitants of modern build
tubular steel, that they too should see what ings." "Positive quality or beauty in the Inter
they could do with the material. It seemed to national Style!' he wrote,
have everything. Furniture made of tubular dependsupon technicallyperfectuseof mate
steel was strong, lightweight, easily portable, rials whether metal, wood, glass or concrete;
and inexpensive to produce, since it required upon the fineness of proportions in units
little of the handcraftmanship of conventional such as doors and windows and in the rela
wood construction. And — in some ways even tionship between these units and the whole
more appealing — it looked new; not only was design. The negative or obverse aspect of
it machine-made, it looked machine-made. The this principle is the elimination of any kind
of ornament or artificial pattern. This lack of
cool austerity, the sleek gleam of metal were
ornament is one of the most difficult ele
exactly what had been needed to bring the ments of the style for the layman to accept?
modernist interior to life. Le Corbusier had
followed his famous dictum in Vers une Archi Barr was, of course, writing about modern
tecture that "a house is a machine for living ist buildings, not about modernist interiors
in" with the further thought that "a chair is a (except insofar as there was an implied con
machine for sitting in." Here, unmistakably, sistency between a building's interior and
was that machine. exterior), and even less about modernist fur-
niture. And yet the qualities he admired in for modernism through his journal, LEspirit
modernist architecture could be applied al Nouveou, and his books, especially the 1923
most as well to Breuer's first tubular-steel Vers une Architecture, which, soon translated
chair. It too was skeletal. Its form was dictated into German and English, became a bible for
by the nature of the modern materials out of the modernists. But despite abundant evidence
which it was constructed. Breuer's concern that he was searching for new approaches to
clearly was with volume— "space enclosed by the problem of furnishing his interiors, his
planes or surfaces" — rather than mass. He own solutions were at best tentative. Unlike
vigorously avoided any ornament or pattern; Mies, Le Corbusier had already built several
the chair achieved its effect, in Barr's words, important houses by 1925; and in addition to
through "the clean perfection of surface and photographs of these (the interiors of which
3 proportion." were shown almost bare of furnishings), he
Photographs or drawings of the interiors of published renderings of the interiors of nu
modernist buildings designed before 1925 are merous unexecuted projects. In these draw
rare, and such photographs as exist usually ings, however, he relies upon a limited and for
show them devoid of furnishings. This may be the most part conventional repertoire of furni
because in their architects' haste to have them ture: overstuffed club chairs, grand pianos,
published, they were photographed before simple dining tables, dining chairs that range
the paint was dry and the clients could move from Thonet bentwood side chairs and arm
in their furniture. It may also be because the chairs to ladderback chairs and even neo
architects had not solved the problem of find classical upholstered tub-back armchairs with
ing or designing consonant furnishings and sabre legs. On his terraces and roof gardens
preferred to have their interiors shown empty he places chairs and tables made of metal
and pure, before they were spoiled by the wire. Perhaps his most conservative creation
impedimenta of living. is a large formal desk in his sketch of a Monol
Take Mies, for example. Before 1925, his house; it could easily be mistaken for the work
designs for modernist houses never progressed of Ruhlmann, Sue et Mare, Leleu, or any of the
beyond the project stage. His drawings for masters of the Art Deco style. His most inno
them were widely published; but, although in vative ideas concern storage systems; as early
later years he frequently produced evocative as 1915 he advocated the use of modular,
sketches of the interiors of his houses, none is mass-produced built-in storage units (although
known to exist from this period. It is a sugges the symmetrical sideboards portrayed in his
tive void and seems even more so when one renderings of dining areas are typical of the
considers that Mies began his career as a more simple furniture widely available at the
furniture designer before becoming an archi time).
tect. The elegance of the steel-framed furni In Vers une Architecture, Le Corbusier
ture he began to produce in 1927 and the inveighed against "your bergeres, your Louis
lambent beauty of his interiors for the Barcelona XVI settees, bulging through their tapestry
Pavilion (1929) and Tugendhat house (1930) covers." "Are these machines for sitting in?"
are unsurpassed. But they all follow Breuers he asked. And yet the only chairs he specifically
breakthrough. recommended are rush-seated church chairs,
Even more interesting is the case of Le luxuriously upholstered armchairs, and Morris
Corbusier, who, in addition to designing highly chairs "with a moveable reading-desk, a shelf
influential buildings, acted as a proselytizer for your coffee cup, an extending foot-rest, a
back that raises and lowers with a handle, 1925, he still had not seen the way. In Vers une
and gives you the very best positions either Architecture, he wrote:
for work or a nap, in a healthy, comfortable,
Our epoch is fixing its own style day by
4 and right way." This is all very well; but day. It is here under our eyes.
despite his hortatory tone, Morris chairs were Eyeswhich do not see^
hardly revolutionary in 1923. Elsewhere he
wrote of the virtues of steamer trunks, metal It was Marcel Breuer, working in Dessau,
office desks, and filing cabinets. who did see and whose imagination made
Curiously, Le Corbusier came close to possible the full realization of the modernist
Breuer's discovery. For years he flirted with the interior. His 1925 design set off a tremendous
idea of mass-produced metal storage units, burst of creativity around him. He himself,
and his use of Thonet bentwood chairs and after designing a number of furniture forms in
bent-wire garden chairs became almost a tubular steel, went on to experiment with
trademark. In 1925, when over the opposition other materials: aluminum, plywood, and,
of the organizers of the Exposition Inter toward the end of his career; monumental
nationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels he sculptural shapes in stone and bushham-
erected his uncompromisingly modernist mered concrete (in which his early subtle
Pavilion de I'Esprit Nouveau, he included in its manipulation of volume was replaced by an
furnishings handsome modular storage cabi affirmation of mass). But had he accomplished
nets raised on metal pipes and tables with nothing beyond that first tubular-steel chair;
pipe legs. He even used bent metal tubes to his signal importance would remain for his
form the handrail for his staircase. But he did vision of a new kind of furniture, the machine
not recognize the potential of the material. for sitting in, the chair within the handlebars.
Subsequently, he looked back and claimed
with characteristic hubris that "the Pavilion J. STEWARTJOHNSON
de I'Esprit Nouveau was a turning point in Curator of Design
the design of modern interiors and a mile Department of Architecture and Design
5 stone in the evolution of architecture." The Museum of Modern Art
He was right in part: the importance of the
Pavilion as architecture cannot be challenged,
particularly in view of its exceptional role in
the Exposition as a paradigm of modernism,
Notes
standing out against an almost entirely Art
Deco agglomeration. But "a turning point in 1. Philip Johnson,. Historical Note; in Henry-Russell
the design of modern interiors"? Hardly. The Hitchcock, Jr., Philip Johnson, et al., Modern Archi
tecture, international Exhibition (New York: MoMA,
interiors of the Pavilion de I'Esprit Nouveau
1932), p. 19.
are disappointing. The storage cabinets are 2. Hitchcock, Johnson, etal., op. cit., pp. 14-15.
very fine, as are such accouterments as the 3. Ibid., p. 15.
Leger painting and the model airplane mounted 4. Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, tr. from
on the wall. But the movable furniture, the 13th French ed. by Frederick EtchelIs (London: John
Rodker, 1927), p. 119.
chairs, are neither new nor unexpected.
5. Le Corbusier, Le Corbusier et Pierre Jeanneret,
In 1927, Le Corbusier (together with Pierre Oeuvre Complete, 1910-1929 (Zurich: Les Editions
Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand) would begin d'Architecture, 1964), p. 104.
to design chairs made of tubular steel; but in 6. Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, p. 95.
13
Marcel Breuer at the Dessau Bauhaus during
the mid-1920s.
Youth and Early Work
1902-25
WALTERGROPIUS AND THE had fostered, between the Arts and Crafts
BAUHAUS WEIMAR School and the local craft industry, a working
relationship that led to "business transactions";
When Breuer arrived in Weimar in 1920, the after van de Velde's departure supervising
Bauhaus was barely a year old. In April of authorities felt that this relationship should be
6 1919,Walter Gropius had become director of "retained by all means and expanded." But in
the Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar, an institu October of 1915, with the escalation of the
tion created to replace the Grand Ducal Arts war, the Grand Duke disbanded the Arts and
and Crafts School and the Grand Ducal Fine Crafts School and turned its building into a
Arts Academy The Bauhaus was largely the military hospital. Nevertheless, while he was
product of Gropius' own conception of art in the army, Gropius continued his discussions
and design education, and reflected his ideas with the Interior Ministry (to whose jurisdic
from the preceding decade. tion the Grand Ducal schools had shifted)
In 1915, after the beginning of the First about his possible role in a new applied art
World War, Henry van de Velde, a Belgian and architecture department which the Minis
architect of international renown who was the try hoped to add to the Fine Arts Academy.
director of the Arts and Crafts School, was Gropius disagreed with the proposal and wrote
forced to resign because he was a foreigner. that "the teaching of architecture. .. is all-
Among the three individuals he recommended encompassing... [and requires] an autonomous
7 as possible successors was Gropius, whom he teaching organization." Pressed by the Minis
seemed to regard as the best choice. Gropius' try to explain the role of art and craft in such a
architectural work, including the startlingly scheme, Gropius drew from his earlier writ
modern Fagus factory (1911) and the adminis ings and answered by showing the relation
tration building for the 1914 Deutscher ship between craft, machine production, and
Werkbund exhibition, was well known to van the artist:
de Velde. The Werkbund, of which van de The manufacturer must see to it that he
Velde was a founder, was an organization of adds the noble quality of handmade ob|ects
artists (mostly architects), businessmen, and to the advantagesof mechanicalproduction.
teachers that had been established to pro Only then will the original ideaof industry—a
mote a close relationship between art and substitute for handwork by mechanical
industry and improve the quality of German means—find its complete realization... .
design. The artist posessesthe ability to breathe
soul into the lifeless product of the machine
In the Werkbund Yearbook of 1913,Gropius
...His collaboration is not a luxury, not a
had written about the important relationship pleasing ad|unct; it must become an indis
that needed to be forged between the artist pensable component in the total output of
and industry: modern industry...
The artist has the power to give the life He concluded his memo with a reference to
less machine-madeproduct a soul. His col
laboration is.. .an indispensable part of the the medieval craft tradition, which had little to
industrial processand must be regarded as do with the emphasis on machine production,
5 such but which prefigured Gropius idea of the
Bauhaus as a community of artist-craftsmen:
17
Among its participants a similarly happy ments of inspiration, transcending the con
partnership might re-emerge as that prac sciousness of his will, the grace of heaven
ticed in the medieval lodges!' where nu may cause his work to blossom into art. But
merous related artist-craftsmen .. .came proficiency in a craft is essential to every
together in a homogeneous spirit and humbly artist! Therein lies the prime source of crea
contributed their independent work to tive imagination. Let us then create a new
8 common taste guild of craftsmen without class distinctions
that raise an arrogant barrier between crafts
Gropius had fought in the war from 1914 man and artist! Together let us desire, con
until 1918, when he was wounded and sent ceive, and create the new structure, which
back to Berlin. Like much of Europe's intellec will embrace architecture and sculpture and
tual community, he was appalled by the painting in one unity and which one day will
slaughter and destruction caused by the war. rise toward heaven from the hands of a
million workers like the crystal symbol of the
After the November Revolution in Germany,
9 new faith
which led to the abdication of the Kaiser;
Gropius helped found, and later became chair In this first manifesto of the Bauhaus, the
man of, the revolutionary Arbeitsrat fOr Kunst emphasis was placed squarely on the learn
(Working Council for Art). Through this group, ing and mastery of craft. Gropius made no
Gropius codified many of the principles that mention of the machine or of technology. The
would become important at the Bauhaus and aim of the early Bauhaus was to train archi
began correspondence with the new govern tects, painters, and sculptors as craftsmen;
ment to see if he was still being considered for "art" could only be achieved through the mas
a post at the Weimar Art Academy. In January tery of craft. The school would nurture "a new
of 1919 his appointment as director of the Art guild of craftsmen" who would build the struc
Academy and also of the Arts and Crafts tures of the future. The primarily craft orienta
School was confirmed. Following his request, tion of the Program was surely a reflection of
the name of the newly combined school was the Ministry's wish that the school fulfill prac
changed to Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar, and tical needs and that it continue to develop the
in April Gropius assumed the post of director. relationship with the local craft industry. The
The official Program for the new school, writ highly romanticized tone and the references
ten by Gropius, was the document that had to the medieval guild reflected a romanticism
led to Breuer's departure from Vienna. Fed up and utopianism in Gropius' thinking that had
with the refined aesth'eticism of Viennese art appeared only with the cataclysmic upheaval
circles and interested in the practical "making" of the war and through the influence of expres
of objects, Breuer was moved by Gropius' sionist artists, including the members of the
powerful exhortation, which read, in part: Blaue Reiter (the painters Marc, Kandinsky,
The ultimate aim of all visual arts is the and Klee) and those associated with the mag
complete building! .. .Architects, painters, and azine Der Sturm (the architects Bruno Taut,
10 sculptors must recognize anew and learn to Adolf Behne, and even Adolf Loos).
grasp the composite character of a building Education for the new craftsmen would
both as an entity and in its composite parts.... begin with an introductory course of six months,
Architects, sculptors, painters, we must
which was intended to familiarize the stu
all return to the crafts! For art is not a
"profession." There is no essential difference dents with the basic principles, material, and
between the artist and the craftsman. The processes of all the visual arts, and the ulti
artist is an exalted craftsman. vIn rare mo mate aim of which was to teach the students
YOUTH AND EARLY WORK, 1902-25
WOODEN FURNITURE(I)
brightly colored upholstered seat and back of unusual was the fact that the house was
which were woven by the leading student of made entirely from teak, salvaged from the
the textile workshop, Gunta Stolzl. Its more interior of a ship.The entrance hall was a tour
economical and angular treatment still betrayed de force, startling in its originality and its
the influence of the primitive in its design and angular, geometrical expressionism. This was
construction. The stavelike pieces which formed due, in large part, to the expressive but care
the front legs and rear stiles tapered in from fully controlled work of Joost Schmidt, a gifted
top to bottom, gently but noticeably And student, and Schmidt's colleagues in the sculp
most important, they were attached to ture workshop.
the seat and back frames in a manner that The heavy uphofstered armchair (fig. 4)
accentuated their separateness or independ designed by Breuer for use in the entrance hall
ence from the seat and back.This separateness, (unfortunately photographs of other rooms
which included their rising above the seat and do not survive) stood in marked contrast to
back, asserted the chair's references to Afri the design of the interior itself. The many
can primitive and European country or folk diagonal lines which served as a backdrop for
furniture. The design, according to Breuer, the chairs provided a foil for their simplified
elicited the qualified approval of Theo van geometry of right angles and rectangular
Doesburg, founder of the Dutch de Stijl group; shapes. Breuer's chair, said to have been exe
during a visit to the Bauhaus, he found fault cuted in cherry wood and leather; was mas
only with the curve of the back. sive and cubelike in form. The bulky upholstered
A chair and table of quite a different order seat and back were carried on four legs, the
were designed in 1921 for the Sommerfeld rear legs extending up to support the back.
house of 1920-21 14(fig. 3), the first collabora The chair was so different from Breuer's
tive effort of the Bauhau-s workshops for an other chairs of 1921 (and so much more inter
actual building. The house for the timber in esting) that one must wonder whether he
dustrialist Adolf Sommerfeld in Berlin provided independently developed the design or whether
the first opportunity for the school to realize the Sommerfeld furniture reflected the ideas
its aim, as enunciated by Gropius, of snythe- of another designer; perhaps Gropius. Compar
sizing art and craft to "create the new struc ison of the Sommerfeld chair with Gropius'
ture, which will embrace architecture and sculp cubelike office armchair of 1923 (fig. 5) sug
ture and painting in one unity..." It was also gests that it was the younger Breuer who was
the strongest manifestation of the romantic beginning to influence his teacher and friend.
and Utopian ideas which Gropius had adopted The Breuer chair was reminiscent of certain
during the war. The Sommerfeld house was a cube chairs produced in Vienna and Darmstadt
remarkable building that lived up to the stand during the first decade of the century. But
ards set for the Bauhaus by its director at its unlike those completely forward-looking de
inception. And its clearly expressionist char signs, the cube form was, in the Breuer chair,
acter seemed to contradict his earlier belief in tempered and enlivened by a lingering feeling
a precise, industrially oriented art. for primitive folk furniture. This tendency is
Gropius and his architectural partner Adolf demonstrated in the extension of the front
Meyer were awarded the commission by and rear legs above the seat and back and the
Sommerfeld; they, in turn, involved the Bauhaus emphatically separate articulation of the legs,
workshops. Unusual as it was to construct a which both literally and figuratively "carry"
house during such depressed times, even more the bulk of the chair.
Fig. 3. Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer, Som- Fig. 4. Armchair, cherry wood and leather, 22
merfeld house, Berlin-Dahlem, 1920. The Sommerfeld house, 1921. In the tradition of
entrance hall, like the entire project, was early-twentieth-century "cube" chairs, the
designed and executed with the collabora armchair indicated the beginnings of the
tion of the Bauhaus workshops; construction de Stijl influence in Breuer's work.
was completed in 1921.
YOUTH AND EARLY WORK, 1902-25
Fig. 5. Waiter Gropius, armchair, cherry wood Fig. 6. Tea table, cherry wood, 1921, also de- 23
with lemon-yellow upholstery, 1923, for the signed for the Sommerfeld house.The empha
Bauhaus Director's office, Weimar. Gropius' sis on "constructed" form characterized most
design bears a close resemblance to Breuer's of Breuer's work until 1926; the treatment of
Sommerfeld chair. the round top and separately articulated legs
recalls his "African" chair.
Fig. 7. Armchair, oak with orange upholstery, 24
1922. (Collection The Museum of Modern Art,
Phyllis B. Lambert Fund.) Made in several dif
ferent versions and in different woods, Breuer's
design unquestionably reflected the influence
of Rietveld's furniture. The upholstery was
woven in the Bauhaus weaving workshop.
that the influence of de Stijl and van Doesburg But what advantage can you see in exhibiting
was not important to the school. Van Doesburg there. I feel very miserable and realize that I
and Gropius came to regard each other with must now give up the de Stijl idea because I
am gradually, due to encircling intrigues,
considerable antipathy. Van Doesburg believed
standing alone. This entire Bauhaus display
that he was personally responsible for the results from the struggle which I had there;
shift in the "creative mentality" of the stu the exposition is intended as an immediate
dents away from the earlier romantic expres revenge against my influence and against
sionism to the rationalism of the school after my person. Gropius, the director, will use
1923. "The intervention of de Stijl" he said, this demonstration only as a raison d'etre
"brought the young artists back to order and for the Bauhaus and as a means of perpetu
17 ating it.
discipline." 16 When these assertions were
denied by the Bauhausler; van Doesburg began
to exhibit antagonistic and paranoid behavior Gropius and others (including Breuer) felt
toward the school, and toward Gropius espe that van Doesburg was grossly overstating his
cially. After learning that Rietveld had exhibited impact on the school. They argued that tend
at the Bauhaus exhibition of 1923, van encies "parallel" to de Stijl and other con-
Doesburg wrote to his colleague: structivist groups had developed independently
at the Bauhaus. Le Corbusier's writings on
i was stunned to see. . .that you had joined
primary forms were cited as a more important
in the Exposition of the Bauhaus in Weimar,
18 thus working against de Stijl. That Wils and influence.
Oud joined does not surprise me very much; For some designers it may well have been
they are constantly advertising themselves. true that their own personal development led
Fig. 8.Gerrit Rietveld, Red-Blue Chair, 1917-18. Fig. 9. Gerrit Rietveld, highbaclc chair, wood, 25
(Collection The Museum of Modern Art, gift of 1919. (Replica based on the original model;
Philip Johnson.) Rietveld's famous chair was collection The Museum of Modern Art, gift of
designed before he officially became a Cassina.) An elaborate de Stijl construction,
member of the de Stijl group, although it this chair was published in 1920 and shown
bore distinct affinities to the designs of Theo at the Bauhaus exhibition in Weimar in 1923.
van Doesburg and the paintings of Piet
Mondrian.
Bauhaus woodworking shop. (In this same
year Gropius became Form Master of the
shop, replacing ltten,and Reinhold Weidensee
became Crafts Master. Both men would retain
those positions until Breuer took over in 1925.)
Without precedent at the Bauhaus, the chair
is a carefully composed series of planar ele
ments floating in space. It is a neo-de Stijl
construction very much related to the chairs of
Gerrit Rietveld. In particular it calls to mind
the so-called Highback chair of 1919 (fig. 9).
Like the Rietveld chair, it declares itself as
more than a simple chair to sit on. Pieces of
the frame set at perpendicular angles pass
through one another. The entire chair seems
to cant back from the front legs.The arms and
back hover in space. There is a tension be
tween the apparent precariousness of the
design and the obvious strength of the mate
rials and construction.
Although the Breuer armchair can accept a
person in comfort, it does not allow the sitter
to violate or alter the essential structure of
the chair. Rietveld's chair, on the other hand,
neither invites sitting nor provides a comfort
them to artistic statements that paralleled those able seat and back for doing so. Breuer
of de Stijl. It is also true that the influence of carefully differentiates between the soft spans
Russian and East European Constructivism of material that form part of the overall
played a role, although in the case of furniture composition of the chair; and the hard wooden
design this role is difficult to define with preci components of the elaborate structural frame.
sion. As for Breuer; however, the de Stijl influ This is a characteristic that remains a constant
ence on his furniture is too strong and too in Breuer's chair designs, with only a very few
specific to be denied. All of his known furni exceptions.
ture from 1921 until 1925 showed the clear This Breuer armchair in particular has a cer
and unmistakable influence of de Stijl, particu tain anthropomorphic appearance. There is
larly of Rietveld's furniture, which played a an articulation of the legs, arms, and frame of
singularly important role in Breuer's art. the chair that mimics the seated human form.
What becomes of some interest in the 1922
WOODEN FURNITURE(II) chair is the structural principle of the canti
lever, that is, the projection of a given element
In 1922, the constructivist aesthetic implicit in beyond its support. This is expressed in the
Breuer's Sommerfeld house furniture emerged extension of the arms above the seat and in
full-blown in an important armchair (fig. 7), the extension backward of the side frame pieces
several versions of which were made in the carrying the rear portion of the back. The can-
ti levering of chair parts becomes more preva and adult sizes, shared the same basic formal
lent in Breuer's work in 1923 and seems to have and structural characteristics as the 1922
held a fascination for him, as it did for other chairs. Although the design varied slightly in
architects and designers of the period. different-size models of the chair; it remained
Another armchair (fig. 10), also of 1922, essentially a simplified version of the earlier
was surely designed under the influence of armchair with padded seat and headrest
Rietveld's chairs. In it most of the structural (fig. 10). In the later side chair, the back frame
elements were thinner and wider; including was reduced to a simple rectangular unit.
the seat, back, arms, and arm supports. The Single pieces of plywood were used for both
flatness of the various elements became part seat and back. Like most of the early wooden
of the chair's aesthetic. Breuer again chose chairs, however; the side chairs seemed more
not to make the chair with a spare Rietveld- like manifestos of a certain artistic sensibility
type of wood seat and back, and instead than carefully considered chairs designed for
added cushions to both. These concessions to comfortable sitting.
comfort, especially the back cushion, added
not only to the chair's functional aspects but THE BAUHAUS EXHIBITION, 1923
also to the variety of shape in the design.
A simple side chair design (fig. 11), exe By late 1922, Breuer; along with much of the
cuted in the following year in both children's Bauhaus community, was beginning to work
Fig. 14. Desk, gray maple, designed for the Fig. 15. Living-room cabinet built of gray 30
study niche in the living room of the Haus- maple, red paduk, Hungarian ash (all in matte
am-Horn, 1923. finish), black polished pearwood, polished
nickel fittings, and glass front, Haus-am-Horn,
1923. By 1923 most furniture made at the
Bauhaus, including examples by Josef Albers,
Erich Brendel, Alma Buscher, Erich Dieckmann,
and Walter Gropius, reflected a variety of
constructivist tendencies in European art.
YOUTH AND EARLYWORK, 1902-25
an active cooperation with the mass-production kitchens or bedrooms (fig. 17). Characteristic
techniques of modern industry. In the same of both were the use of brightly painted colors
year he wrote: for decorative effect and a simplified construc
tion that nonetheless permitted interesting
It follows that the Bauhausdoes not pre
tend to be a crafts school. Contact with designs.
industry is consciouslysought. . .Craftsman More complicated than these was a com
ship and industry are today steadily ap bined desk and bookcase (figs. 18, 19), also
proaching one another and are destined to made in painted plywood. Designed for use in
merge into one. . . In this union the old craft the middle of a room or with one of its short
workshops will develop into industrial labo sides against a wall, the desk-bookcase was
ratories:from the experimentationwill evolve
still fraught with a de Stijl complexity of form
22 new standards for industrial production
and an emphasis on its "constructed" quali
Despite the Bauhaus' strong orientation ties. Again, Breuer used color to compensate
toward craft, however^ some designs were for the loss of the texture and grain of fine
already suitable for mass production. The con woods.
struction of Breuer's 1921 round table for the One final piece of furniture that deserves
Sommerfeld house, for example, was uncompli mention in the context of Breuer's earlier
cated, as were his 1923 designs for children's wooden furniture is the chair (fig. 20) designed
and adult side chairs (fig. 11) and, more im for, or at least used in, a housing development
portant, his boxlike table (fig. 11). Although designed by Gropius and built in Dessau in
this rigidly geometrical table— its legs, square 1926. Whether the chair already existed in
in section, running up into the top, without the 1924 or was a completely new design is not
visual break of a conventional overhang —was known. By 1926 Breuer was already design
not executed until several years later, it was ing furniture in tubular steel, but Gropius
the earliest version of the now ubiquitous desired inexpensive mass-produced furniture
"Parsons" table. Variations of it were designed for the houses, and wood was the logical
in the late 1920s by the German architect answer. Breuer designed a side chair and stool
Mies van der Rohe and the French designer for the project and may also have designed a
23 Jean-Michel Frank. Breuer's widely published
design, used extensively at the Bauhaus, was
clearly their inspiration.
A slightly more complex table (fig. 16) was
designed in 1924 and executed in cherry wood.
Each of its legs, attached to the inside of the
table frame, was placed at an angle perpen
dicular to the adjacent leg. It demonstrated a
persistent constructivist impulse that can be
seen even in Breuer's simplest furniture at this
time.
Furniture designs by Breuer and other
Bauhausler using less expensive woods, es
pecially plywood, and clearly intended for
mass production, were more prevalent in 1924.
Among these were Breuer's cabinets made for
35
4
Fig. 21. The Bauhaus faculty, photographed Fig. 22. Walter Gropius, Bauhaus, Dessau, de- 36
atop the Bauhaus studio building, 1926. Left signed 1925, completed in 1926. The new
to right: Josef Albers, Hinnerk Scheper, Georg Dessau Bauhaus buildings provided the suit
Muche, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer, ably modernist setting for Breuer's first
Joost Schmidt, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer tubular-steel furniture designs.
(hatless), Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel
Feininger, Gunta Stolzl, and Oskar Schlemmer.
BAUHAUS DESSAU, 1925-28
37
newspaper while Breuer was still working on
8 the design? On the basis of the photograph
he received many inquiries asking if the chair
was available for purchase. He ignored the
requests and continued working until he ar
rived at what he thought was the final solu
tion for the design (fig. 24).
Breuer was extremely nervous about his
Fig. 23
new metal chair. In 1927 he wrote:
Fig. 23. Club armchair, tubular steel with fabric Fig. 24. Club armchair, 1925. A Bauhaus stu 38
(possibly horsehair), 1925. Breuer's first dent in a mask from Oskar Schlemmer's Triadic
tubular-steel chair was made from prebent Ballet sitting in what Breuer considered to be
lengths of tubing welded together; although his first "final" version of the armchair, which
braces joined front legs to back legs, the chair connected the legs of each side in a runner or
was still conceived of as having four separate sled arrangement, allowing for easy moving
legs. about; in addition to light weight and trans
parency, mobility was a characteristic sought
by Breuer in his new furniture.
Fig. 25
Fig. 25. Club armchair, tubular steel and convas, Fig. 26. Club armchair, 1929. An alternative 39
late 1927 or early 1928. (Collection The version produced by Thonet added a cross
Museum of Modern Art, gift of Herbert Bayer.) brace to the base and made the seat continu
The definitive version of the armchair, in which ous with the outer frame, thereby altering
Breuer connected the back uprights in a more the structure of the frame. Thinner braces
continuous design. were placed beneath the seat to supply
lateral stability lost by the removal of the
crosspiece that originally spanned the front
of the seat.
The club armchair still partook of the structure appealed to Breuer as a first project.
de Stijl-constructivist aesthetic seen in Breuer's Yet it was the one furniture type that seemed
wooden chairs of 1922-23. All within the to defy the transparent and open aesthetic of
context of what is implied to be a cubic volume, the newly developing modern architecture, an
the tautly stretched planes of fabric and the aesthetic to which tubular-steel furniture was
labyrinth of steel tubes turn the chair into an ideally suited.
abstraction. The design makes the observer In the 1927-28 version of the chair (fig. 25),
conscious, above all, of the interaction of planes the construction of the back from a single
in space.The polished metal framework forms piece of tube was introduced to reduce the
an interlocking network of planes running stress on the two separate back pieces found
parallel and perpendicular to each other. The in the original design. Not only did it reduce
upholstery whether it be canvas, eisengorn, the possible inward tilt of the pieces, but the
or leather, offers a highly successful contrast joining of the back uprights led to a more
of texture, shape, and color with the frame. In homogeneous design, one with which Breuer
many ways the chair seems deliberately and was more satisfied. To a certain extent, how-,
unnecessarily complex, even fussy; yet it ever, the complicated constructivist aesthetic
possesses an integrity and a sense of artistic still remained in Breuer's first tubular-steel
sophistication that have made it emblematic chair. Through the use of tubular steel a new
of the best avant-garde furniture of the 1920s. beginning had been established, and would
Like Rietveld's Red-Bluechair (fig. 8) Breuer's be built upon and clarified until the logic of
armchair is a somewhat awkward design. The the material could be fully expressed.
angling of the seat and back recalls the Rietveld Breuer began producing a limited quantity
design. A crucial difference, however, which of the club armchairs in late 1925 and sold
becomes true of most of Breuer's seating fur them to those who had inquired when the
niture after 1925, is the sense the chair gives photograph had been published. These chairs
of the seat and back being suspended above were made in his own studio, and the transac
the ground —or; more correctly, floating within tions were kept separate from the commercial
a network of lines and planes. The sitter never ventures of the Bauhaus itself. Although there
touches the steel framework of the chair. The could have been no question that the artistic
notion of suspending the sitter in pure space climate of the Bauhaus had everything to do
remained a constant one in his seating furni with Breuer's ideas and designs, he has always
ture, and should be recalled when the origins spoken of his tubular-steel furniture as inde
of the modern cantilever chair are discussed. pendent work. Asked if he considered the
Breuer's ideal of seating, as presented in the chair to be a Bauhaus product, he replied;
1926 photomontage of a 'Bauhaus film, five The chair was not a Bauhaus product in
years long" (fig. 27), was the sitter floating the sense that a painting by Paul Klee was
32 on'Yesilient air columns!' not a Bauhausproduct. [Klee'spainting] was
There was an unmistakable irony in Breuer's done on his own time and with his own
choice of the comfortable club armchair for money,in his own workshop.Tothat extent it
was not a Bauhausproduct.
his first tubular-steel chair. The furniture type
was the subject of unrelenting vilification While Breuer produced a limited number of
among many early modernist designers. No thearmchairs, he also worked on new designs.
doubt the design of a chair with maximum In late 1925 and early 1926, he designed a set
support and the possibility of an intricate of folding theater chairs (fig. 29), a small stool
BAUHAUS DESSAU, 1925-28
4 -V:
*Ml
Fig. 28. Bauhaus auditorium, 1925-26. This Fig. 29. Tubular-steel theater seating, 1925-26. 42
was the first large-scale installation of Subsequently manufactured by Standard-
tubular-steel furniture. The seating was by Mobel and Thonet as model Bl.
Breuer, lighting by the metal workshop un
der Moholy-Nagy's direction, and the color
scheme by the wall-painting workshop under
Hinnerk Scheper.
BAUHAUS DESSAU, 1925-28
These seating units, through the use of the this side-chair model was never produced
cantilevered seat, exploited the structural pos commercially. In most versions of the chair the
sibilities of tubular steel far more effectively sections of steel that formed the back and rear
than had the club armchair. The cantilevered legs flared outward both above and below
arms, which recalled the wooden armchair of the bottom of the back upholstery. This lent a
1922, showed Breuer's predilection for arms certain awkwardness to the design. In addi
which dispensed with visible supports. tion, the joining of the two main units through
For the adjacent Bauhaus canteen (fig. 30), the bolting together of two parallel horizontal
Breuer designed, and the cabinetmaking work lengths of round tubing, one atop the other,
shop built, a series of long dining tables, did not make for complete visual stability.
extremely simple in construction and appear Problematic though some aspects of the
ance, based on his design of 1923 (fig. 11).His design were, it did confirm Breuer's interest in
new stool (fig. 31), another innovative design working on chairs, and other furniture, that
that brilliantly exploited the structural possibili utilized a runner or sled arrangement for the
ties of tubular steel, was used for seating. base of the chair, rather than four separate
The stool, which was modified in size as a legs.The importance of this element, first used
group of nesting tables in 1927, was a refined by Breuer in the 1925 club armchair, cannot be
and elegant design — it was also Breuer's fa overestimated. For although its origins may
vorite. It was marked by a distinctive original indeed go back to Thonet's bentwood rocking
ity of conception that demonstrated Breuer's chairs, it was Breuer's tubular-steel designs
move away from the complications of construc that made the element an integral part of
tivism toward a mode of design that was modern tubular-steel furniture. The initial im
more personal. With the stool, he had de pulse for the runners was to provide designs
signed what was arguably the simplest possi that were mobile not only because they were
ble solution for a piece of tubular-steel furniture. light in weight, but also because they could
The shape of the stool was boxlike. Like easily be pulled or pushed along the surface
other Breuer tubular-steel designs, it gave the of the floor. This runner arrangement for chair
impression of being a schematic diagram of a bases became an important visual expression
given furniture type. Made from two pieces of of the continuous nature of tubular steel, one
bent tubular steel, the stool was so successful of the most important structural (and intellec
because it was remarkably light, visually unob tual) aspects of the new furniture. Part of the
trusive, the least expensive of all the tubular- initial interest in tubular steel was the fact that
steel designs, and could be used either as a it could, like certain woods, be bent. Steel,
stool or as a table. Testimony to its ingenuity however, was easier to bend and offered po
was provided by both Mies van der Rohe and tential that had so far barely been investigated.
Le Corbusier; who designed stools which were It must have seemed possible, at least on a
clearly imitations of the Breuer original. theoretical level, for a chair to be made from a
Breuer's stools were used throughout the single, continuous, bent length of tube. The
school, in the studio building, and in the Mas impulse toward designing chairs from a single
ters' houses. Also used throughout the school, piece of material has been a strong and per
especially in office spaces and in virtually all sistent one in modern times. As technology
of the Masters' houses, was Breuer's first improved and new materials and processes
tubular-steel side-chair design (fig. 32). Al were invented, designers moved closer and
though used so extensively at the Bauhaus, closer to that goal. Tubular steel was the first
43
Fig. 30. Bauhaus canteen, 1925-26.The tables Fig. 31. Nesting stools, tubular steel and wood,
were designed by Breuer and built in the 1925-26. (Collection The Museum of Modern
carpentry workshop, which Breuer now Art, gift of Dr. Anny Baumann.) Each stool was
headed. The dark wall to the right folded to made from two pieces of tube; the seats were
allow the extension of the auditorium stage attached with screws placed through the tube
into the canteen. and the side of the seat; only in later years
was the connection made with metal flanges.
Both Standard-Mobel and Thonet manufactured
the stool as a set of nesting tables, model B9.
BAUHAUS DESSAU. 1925-28
material since the development of bentwood the front, by two lengths of tubular steel. The
in the 1840s, to offer the opportunity for such seat was an upholstered circle of wood trimmed
furniture, even if it was necessary to add in white. The backs were made from two tubu
material —fabric, leather caning —for seats lar-steel supports and an upholstered wooden
and backs.The major problem, of course, was back, also rectangular.
that a chair still needed four legs to stand on, Although the chairs suffered from a lack of
even if the legs were joined to each other by harmony between the heavy base and the
continuous lengths of steel. And although very thin and light back, the accompanying
Breuer's stool appeared to be a "continuous" table was as beautiful a piece of sculpture as
design, the central design impulse of the period the contemporary constructions by the Hun
concerned the side chair or armchair. It was garian artist and Bauhaus Master Moholy-
not until the development of the cantilevered Nagy, which it very much resembled. It was
chair in 1926-27 that the promise of a contin made from a rectangular wooden base (raised
uous chair became, at least in principle, ful on four short lengths of tubular steel), from
filled. the top of which projected eight thin steel
W ME
„ c^ i
r
II
- .... ""
W^Z Mill
p ° «|
Fig. 36. Guest room dressing niche, Gropius Fig. 37. Double desk, Gropius house, 1925-26. 48
house, 1925-26. Breuer designed the tubular- The desk that Breuer designed for Walter and
steel and glass multishelf dressing table. Ise Gropius was photographed at least a year
after its completion with Standard-Mobel's
B7 swivel side chair.
BAUHAUS DESSAU, 1925-28
Fig. 38. Bedside table, Gropius house, 1925-26. Fig. 39. Gropius and Breuer, "Double sofa" 49
living room, Gropius house, 1925-26.The back
of the couch dropped down to form one half
of the bed; the round cushion that was inserted
with steel rods at the foot of the single bed
could be moved to become the headrest for
the top of the double bed.
Fig. 40. Dining room, Moholy-Nagy house,
1925-26. Furniture designed by Breuer, color
scheme and easel painting by Moholy-Nagy,
and lighting fixture by Gropius and the
Bauhaus metal workshop.
BAUHAUS DESSAU, 1925-28
^SHmHhhhBIh
Fig. 41. Living room, Moholy-Nagy Master's Fig. 42. Bedroom-bath, Moholy-Nagy house, 51
house, 1925-26. Breuer designed most of the 1925-26. The use (and asymmetrical arrange
furniture in the room, including the ingenious ment) of the dressing table and mirror became
projecting wall-storage unit. standard in Breuer interiors.
not of identical design, to the Gropius unit. It TUBULAR-STEELFURNITUREAND
too opened both on the pantry and dining STANDARD-MOBEL
sides.The bedroom contained a dressing mirror
and table arrangement (fig. 42) which Breuer On 12 September 1926, after the Masters'
had used for Nina Kandinsky and which he houses had been finished and as the students
would employ over several decades. were moving into their new facilities, Breuer
The extent of Breuer's involvement in the applied for a design registration (Gebrauchs -
35 interior design of Georg Muche's austere muster) for seven furniture designs: the
interior (fig. 43) is unclear. He designed an stool, the club armchair, a folding club arm
unusual desk and drawer unit, and possibly chair; the side chair, a version of the same
another group of modular drawers, which sat chair with arms, the theater seating, and a
in the middle of the Muche living room. The drawing-table frame made from tubular-steel
desk was a simple boxlike construction placed sawhorses (fig. 44). Neither the armchair
perpendicular to a drawer unit. Like much of version of the Bauhaus side chair nor the
the Masters' house furniture, the desk and drafting table is to be found in photographs
drawer were painted in black, white, and bright of the Bauhaus interiors, although the draft
colors such as blue or red. Breuer may also ing table was published a few years later.
have designed a couch and thin bookcase that Shortly after Breuer's application for the
projected from the living-room wall. registration of his designs, he became involved
with a company that sought to market his
tubular-steel chairs. The firm, Standard -Mo beI, independent relationship that Breuer always
later known as Standard-Mobel G.m.b.H. maintained with producers of his early furni
and then as Standard-Mobel Lengyel & Co., ture, designed at the Bauhaus, is difficult to
was begun by another Hungarian architect, explain. Yet the explanation lies simply in
Kalman Lengyel, in partnership with Breuer. Breuer's insistence that the designs were his
Although the founding date of the company is own independent creations and had nothing
unknown, Lengyel must have come to Breuer to do with the school itself. Although Ise
either in late 1926 or early 1927 and pro Gropius noted in her diary that "In spite of his
posed a joint business venture. As Breuer youth, he [Breuer] is really the only one who
later recalled, Lengyel offered to supply all of understands what it means to run this
36 the money and staff necessary to start a com Bauhaus," the reaction to Breuer's announce
pany that would manufacture and sell Breuer's ment of his new business venture was one of
furniture to the public. The ensuing business dismay.
transactions were never handled through the
official Bauhaus corporation or through its A very unpleasant event with Breuer.He
business manager; but rather; directly between has made a deal about his metal chairs with
Breuer and Lengyel. In view of Gropius' desire a Berlin friend without telling anybody and
that will now lead to great difficulties in the
not only to have Bauhaus goods produced negotiations of Dr.Konig in Dresdenabout a
under license, but also to publicize designs Bauhaus GmbH [a limited corporation es
that were in any way related to the school, the tablished in 1926to licensethe manufacture
BREUER METALLMOBEL
ElAST. ROCKENLEHNE
ELAST. ARMLEHNE
ELAST, SEITENLEHNE
ELAST. KREUZSTOTZE
ELAST, SITZ
Fig. 45. Herbert Bayer, cover of catalog de Fig. 46. Folding club armchair B4, tubular steel 54
signed for Standard-Mobel, printed by the and fabric, 1926. Manufactured by Standard-
Bauhaus printing press, probably 1927. (Col Mobel and exhibited in one of the Gropius
lection The Museum of Modern Art.Tschichold houses at the 1927 Weissenhof exhibition.
Collection, gift of Philip Johnson.) Standard-
Mobel was the company started by Kalman
Lengyel with Breuer in late 1926 or early
1927 to market Breuer's tubular-steel furni
ture designs.
Fig. 46
Fig. 47
Fig. 47. Folding side chair B8, tubular steel Fig. 48. Folding armchair, tubular steel and 55
with wood seat and back, 1927. Although this fabric, c. 1928. The design demonstrated
chair was never illustrated in Standard-Mobel Breuer's fascination with folding chairs, but
catalogs and its model number was later given apparently it was never mass-produced.
to several stool designs, it was described in a
catalog of 1928.
RUCKEN -LEHNSTUHL
mit Holzsitz und Holzriickenlehne
Gewicht ca. 3 kg
Sitzbohe ca. 450 mm
Gesamtbreiteca.400 mm
store, and the most adaptable of all chairs. of a simple L-shaped seat and back, the back
Breuer designed a simpler folding side chair in tilted slightly to the rear and raised on a
1927 (fig. 47), the wooden seat of which well-proportioned four-legged base.The height
folded straight up into the frame. In the fol of the seat was adjustable.
lowing year he designed a more complex "di The B5 side chair (fig. 58) can be seen as a
rector's" chair (fig. 48) with canvas seat and successful refinement or further development
back. Neither chair was ever produced in of the Bauhaus side chair (fig. 32). Indeed the
quantity. Even the B4 was not a commercial overall conception of the design was the same;
success. It remained in production for no more only the construction of the front legs differed
than three years. substantially.
B6 (fig. 49) was a modest side chair which Most of the chairs above, included in the
could be seen as a variation of the B9 stool. first Standard-Mobel catalog, were designed
The basic form of the stool was retained for in late 1926 or early 1927. A second Standard-
the seat and a wooden back was added. It Mobel catalog was printed in mid-1928. It was
was the least costly of the side chairs and was a large foldout brochure entitled "Das Neue
probably intended for institutional use. B7, Mobel" (the new furniture), featuring the
the swivel desk chair (fig. 37), which the cata "Breuer tubular-steel furniture system." In ad
log suggested was appropriate for use not dition to four new Breuer designs of 1927,
only in offices but also in kitchens, consisted four furniture items marked with the letter L
INTERIORS, 1926-28
Fig. 50. Armchair Bll, tubular steel and convas, Fig. 51. Table BIO, tubular steel and wood, 57
1926-27. (Collection Manfred Ludewig, Berlin.) 1927. (Collection The Museum of Modern Art,
The simplified geometric design of the B5 Estee and Joseph Lauder Design Fund.) Breuer's
side chair and Bll armchair made them the table was one of the most widely plagiarized
most popular tubular-steel chairs of the 1920s; designs of the period; imitations were manu
it was not until 1930 that cantilevered chairs factured by companies on the Continent, in
became widely available and popular. England, and in America.
|» B
y/y/Wz.
'9' Fig. 52.. Thost house, Hamburg, 1926. Part of F 53. Thost house, Hamburg, 1926.
an entire-house renovation, this neo-de Stijl
room was designed to house the clients' pot
tery collection.
BAUHAUS DESSAU, 1925-28
59
%
scttenoncicM
seitenansichl:
»«n Het 66cm tief
r,
Fig. 54. Wall cabinet, wood, glass, and metal, Fig. 55. Design for modular wall units, c. 1926. 60
designed for the Wilensky apartment, Berlin, Based on a module of thirty-three centimeters,
1926. The back panels were painted white such cabinets were used by Breuer in virtu
(upper left), deep blue (upper right), and red ally all of his interiors.
(lower right); the fronts were either black
lacquer or glass; the cabinet frame was made
in a richly veneered plywood.
BAUHAUS DESSAU, 1925-28
sion to his interiors, and stood in contrast to that sat on two bases painted in a dark color.
his earlier, more complicated constructivist Each base looked like an expressionistically
forms. The beauty of the modular system was rendered letter H placed on its side, and the
that the units could easily be executed by any table, with its dramatic silhouette, provided
carpenter from the drawings and could be the only angular shapes in the entire room of
9 made less or more expensive through the use verticals and horizontals? Piscator's dining
of different woods, different types of fronts room was a carefully balanced composition,
(sliding or pivoting, wood or glass), and dif spare and severe, yet with a unique sense of
ferent finishes or trims (stain or lacquer, no drama achieved through the meticulous place
trim or metal-plated edges). ment of the various objects in the room.
In 1927, Breuer was commissioned to reno The bedroom of Mr. Piscator (fig. 59) (as
vate the apartment of one of the best-known usual, there were separate bedrooms for mar
members of the European avant-garde, the ried couples) could more properly be termed a
theater producer Erwin Piscator. With his left- bedroom-gymnasium. Typical of the period,
wing politics Piscator resembled numerous and especially of modern architects, was the
Bauhausler, and his role in the development of concern with health and physical fitness—
modern theater was seminal. He had had what Breuer termed the 'healthy body cul
much contact with Gropius and Moholy- ture." Virtually all early modern architects
Nagy, and in 1927 Gropius designed a project designed their houses with wide expanses of
for a Total Theater for Piscator a daring archi windows to allow maximum exposure to day
tectural experiment that would, through a light, terraces for sunbathing, and some even
mobile design, allow different types of per with gymnasiums. Large-scale, low-cost hous
formances to be staged in the same hall. ing schemes were designed with maximum
Unfortunately, as is the case for virtually all attention to hygiene. To many there existed a
of Breuer's commissions, no plans or draw direct correlation between good health and
ings survive; according to Breuer;they were all modern architecture, as there was between
removed from the attic of his Berlin apartment poor health and traditional buildings. Tubular
building and destroyed during the early 1930s. steel was, in particular; praised by its propo
But, like many of the Berlin dwellings that nents for its hygienic qualities.
Breuer subsequently renovated, the Piscator The obsession with health resulted in in
apartment was a large, sprawling space in an ternational hygiene exhibitions and the heroic
old building. It contained at least six rooms of depiction of athletes in the work of such
large size (figs. 56-59). Perhaps the most dra avant-garde artists as Willi Baumeister, El
matic space was the dining room (fig. 56). As Lissitzky, and John Heartfield. And although
in most of Breuer's newly renovated apart this interest in health could be seen in the
ments, he stripped the walls of moldings, leav context of the rise of Hitler and the glorifica
ing them completely bare and, in all likelihood, tion of the Aryan race, such concerns were
painted white. Here, as in all of the rooms, he typical of architects of all nationalities. In 1923
painted the baseboard a dark color. The long the French architect Robert Ma Ilet-Stevens de
dining room was fitted with a thin, horizontal signed a sports terrace adjacent to an indoor
band of hanging storage units, on top of swimming pool for a villa in Hyeres, and at
which selected objects were placed for deco the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs,
rative effect. The dining table was formed the French designer Francis Jourdain had
from a wooden top (covered with milky glass) exhibited a "Salle de Sport." In the section on
61
"The Manual of the Dwelling," in his 1923 The furnishing of Piscator's bedroom was
Towards an Architecture, Le Corbusier wrote: austere. The bed was enclosed in a half-
canopy arrangement attached to a small ward
Demand a bathroom looking south...
robe. The cabinets were probably painted in
opening if possible on to a balcony for sun
gray-blue and contrasting white, a color scheme
baths; the most up-to-date fittings with a
shower-bath and gymnastic appliances typical of those years. The wall surrounding
Never undress in your bedroom. It is not a the bed was covered with fabric, a common
clean thing to do and makes the room horri means to protect the wall finish. (Breuer is
bly untidy. . . . said to have favored a light, woven, strawlike
Demand a vacuum cleaner. . . . material commonly available under the name
Demand ventilating panes to the windows "madagascar.") An entire wall was devoted to
in every room.
carefully arranged exercise equipment, which
Teach your children that a house is only
habitable when it is full of light and air, and was used by Piscator each day upon rising.
when the floors and walls are clear. In June of 1927, the enormously important
To keep your floors in order eliminate Deutscher Werkbund exhibition, "Die Woh-
heavy furniture and thick carpets. . 40 nung" (The Dwelling), opened on the grounds
Fig. 57. Living room, Piscator apartment, Fig. 58. Living room, Piscator apartment, 63
Berlin, 1927. Sliding doors separated the din Berlin, 1927. The room was furnished with
ing and living rooms; placed above the radia tubular-steel furniture including an unusual
tor were cacti, often called the plant of the coffee table made of glass and tubular and
modernist interior. sheet steel; above the couches was a unique
track-lighting system constructed from a long
length of tubular steel to which was attached
a simple bulb reflector.
of the Weissenhof estate in Stuttgart. The so Breuer could work on the interiors. In one
Weissenhof exhibition, which included thirty- of the Stam houses, Breuer designed a study
three housing units designed by sixteen lead and a dining room (fig. 60). The study was a
ing modernist architects, not only was the first stark room fitted with a single-board desk
and most important of the housing exhibi hung from a wall and attached to a group of
tions of the 1920s, but marked the first time modular bookshelves,drawer; and cabinet units,
that the architectural work of the major fig all executed in sheet metal. Breuer considered
ures of the newly developing modern move the design of the units conventional and the
ment could be seen at one time in one location. use of metal unnecessary since the cabinets
Although Breuer was not among the group of and shelves could easily have been made from
42 architects invited to design the housing units, wood
he did, thanks to Gropius' recommendation, The dining room was equally spare. The
design rooms in the houses designed by Mart same modular bookcases and cabinets were
41 Stam and Gropius In addition, his furniture used in a different arrangement, stacked against
was exhibited in a coordinated exhibition in one wall. The glass-topped table and metal fur
the Stuttgart Gewerbehalle organized by Lilly niture was by now familiar. The floor was
Reich. linoleum, a popular flooring material during
According to Breuer, Stam officially hired the 1920s and '30s because of its shiny ap
him to execute the rooms in his houses, and in pearance and ease of maintenance. More often,
1926 sent Breuer the plans of the new designs however, it was used in exhibition interiors,
mmm
Fig. 60. Dining room, Mart Stam house, Weis- Fig. 61. Dining-living room for Walter Gropius 65
senhof housing exhibition, Stuttgart, 1927. In house, Weissenhof housing exhibition, Stutt
the Stam house Breuer made use of modular gart, 1927. The far wall was entirely covered
enameled metal cabinets of his own design. with built-in cabinet units; the daybed to the
His interiors at this time relied increasingly left may have been specially designed by
on metal furniture, glass-topped wooden Breuer; the lighting fixture was manufactured
tables, and linoleum floors. by the firm of August Blodner.
and couches appeared which were strictly
metallic in character, and were efficient and
about as interesting as modern sanitary fit
49 tings
only exists in the movement which animates [Metal furniture] will be modern with a
it, in the practical force which it generates. vengeance. Personally I very much dislike
The beauty of the machine is not actually the aseptic, hospital style of furnishing. To
present. It is a potential beauty... But to dine off an operating table, to loll in a den
demand of the machine. . .the same emo tist's chair —this is not my idea of domestic
tions as are aroused by a work of art which bliss... the time, I am sure, is not far off
comes from the soul and heart. . . is nonsen when we shall go for our furniture to the
51 sical . . . nearest Ford or Morris agent
To construct a bed according to the same
aesthetic as a suspension bridge, or to
construct a house like a factory, to design a The proponents of tubular steel, of course,
dining room as a chilly laboratory shows a were not swayed from their belief in the mate
50 lack of psychology. rial. As early as 1927, Breuer had addressed
these attitudes when he wrote:
Comparisons of tubular-steel furniture with
the equipment of hospitals and doctors' of
fices were common. In 1930, five years after Our work is unrelenting and unretrospec-
tive; it despises tradition and established
Breuer had made his first tubular-steel chair,
custom. A frequent criticism of steel furni
and by which time he had virtually ceased to ture is that it is cold, clinical and reminiscent
design in metal, no less a writer than Aldous of an operating theater. But these are con
Huxley wrote disparagingly of metal furni cepts which flourish from one day to the
ture, including Breuer's, exhibited at the 1930 next. They are the product of habit, soon
52 Paris exhibition: destroyed by another habit
of a back. Further, Breuer has maintained that chair; which was marketed by Thonet in early
Stam visited the Bauhaus during 1926 and 1929 as model B33 (figs. 67, 68). By 1928
that the two designers spent time together Breuer had also designed at least one arm
both in Breuer's studio and on a journey by chair model, later marketed as B34 (figs. 69,
train to Frankfurt. At that time Breuer showed 70), and a different cantilevered design that
Stam all of his tubular-steel furniture and would become his most famous chair; the
explained his idea for the cantilevered chair. Thonet model B32 (fig. 71), along with an
Stam, Breuer recalled, mentioned nothing about armchair version, B64 (fig. 72).
any of his own experiments with tubular steel. The B33 side chair; which can be seen either
Although Breuer'saccount does put the Stam as deriving logically from Breuer's earlier work
design in a different perspective, there is no or as modifying slightly the Stam chair; was
definite record that Stam visited the Bauhaus design reduced to the barest minimum. The
in 1926. It is known that in 1926 Gropius chair appeared to be made of a continuous
attempted, unsuccessfully, to convince Stam length of tube with the seat and back stretched
to join the Bauhaus faculty. A trip to the between the sides of the frame. Its propor
school may therefore have taken place. Fur tions and overall detailing were superior to
ther, it is also known that Stam traveled in those of the Stam side chair. There were no
Germany during 1926, but his only certain extra supporting members visible, no four
destination was Frankfurt. legs to hold the chair up. And it is not difficult
Although some may insist that owing to to believe that people were afraid to sit in the
Breuer's development of modern tubular-steel first cantilevered chairs.
furniture, the idea of cantilevered seating was The B34, of which there were two versions
in the air and that the question of who made (figs. 69, 70), attempted to take the form of
the first design should not be an important the simple cantilevered chair and turn it into
concern, it is nonetheless of considerable inter an armchair. In both versions the most impor
est. It is not beyond reason that Breuer had tant modification to the side-chair design was
conceived of a cantilevered chair based on the the construction of the chair from two basic
B9 stool or even on his simple B5 side chair units: the L-shaped seat and back set within
(since with its rear legs removed, the B5 side the base-leg unit (which itself took the form of
chair closely resembles the Stam chair). And the B9 stool tipped on its side).
the idea of cantilevered seating was, at least In his masterful B32 chair (fig. 71) the con
in abstract terms, suggested in Breuer's 1926 tinuity of the steel frame was broken. Because
"Bauhaus film, five years long" (fig. 27), where of the strength of the wooden seat and back
a woman reclines on "resilient air columns." frames, no additional support was necessary:
But the abstract idea or description gives no no crosspieces, no hidden tubes beneath the
suggestion of form. It was the Stam chair that seat, not even the usual joining of tube behind
provided the formal basis, throughout Europe, the sitter's back. A new dimension was added
for the many cantilevered chairs that followed. in this chair through the textural and coloristic
contrast of the highly polished steel tubing
with the wooden frames and the caned seat
BREUER'SFIRSTCANTILEVERED DESIGNS and back. The caning made the seat and back
transparent and was also an unmistakable
In 1927, or perhaps as late as early 1928, reference to the bentwood and cane chairs of
Breuer designed his first cantilevered side Thonet, which had enjoyed a tremendous re-
,
2 Fig. 67. Thonet side chair B33, tubular steel Fig. 68. Thonet side chair B33V tubular steel 72
and canvas, late 1927 or early 1928. Ruled by and canvas, 1929. (Collection The Museum of
the German courts to be an imitation of the Modern Art, gift of Dr. Anny Baumann.) Child's
Stam cantilevered side chair, it was credited version of Thonet's B33.
to Stam beginning in 1932. Thonet first pro
duced the B33 in late 1928 or early 1929 as
Breuer's design.
BAUHAUS DESSAU, 1925-28
Fig. 69. Thonet armchair B34 (first version), Fig. 70. Thonet armchair B34 (second version), 73
tubular steel and canvas, 1928. Both Breuer tubular steel and canvas, 1929. Breuer modi
and Anton Lorenz claimed the design. Lorenz' fied the armchair design and arrived at a
own company, DESTA, began manufacturing more successful solution for bracing the seat
the chair only at the end of 1929, months to the frame. Thonet also manufactured Breuer
after Thonet began production. The treatment armchair B30, which differed only in its having
of the cross brace spanning the legs is quite the L-shaped seat and back directly welded to
uncharacteristic of Breuer. the arms and legs.
Fig. 71. Thonet side chair B32, tubular steel,
right on the principle of the straight-legged
wood, and cane, 1928. (Collection The Museum
cantilever in chairs. Breuer was unquestion
of Modern Art, Edgar J. Kaufmann, Jr., Fund.)
ably the designer, and even after the court
Breuer s most famous and now ubiquitous seat
decision Thonet continued to pay him royal
ing design was attributed to Mart Stam on ties on the chair.
the grounds that Stam owned an artistic copy
BAUHAUS DESSAU, 1925-28
Mobel the rights to his designs already in pro chairs. The first Thonet catalog of tubular-
duction. He did so to help save the company steel furniture was devoted exclusively to Breuer
which was doing poorly because of Lengyel's designs and was issued during 1929.
early mismanagement. He did not, however, Several surprising facts emerge from a close
sign over the rights to many new designs on scrutiny of the chronology of these events. In
which he was working. Because of its precari November of 1928 Standard-Mobel was still
ous financial condition, Standard-Mobel elected advertising Breuer's club armchair and the
to produce only a limited number of items, "System Marcel Breuer."The coffee table (B18)
and Breuer's new designs were not even con advertised by Thonet in January of 1929 was
sidered for production. not a model produced by Standard-Mobel. It
At the sometime, Breuer began negotiating is therefore clear that both Standard and Thonet
with Gebruder Thonet, most likely with Wilhelm were producing different Breuer designs during
Eitnep the director of their German branch, for late 1928 and the first quarter of 1929. It was
an arrangement that would give Thonet the not until 11 April 1929 that Thonet puchased
right to produce Breuer's new tubular-steel Standard-Mobel from Lorenz, including the
designs. An agreement was reached in July of rights to all of the other Breuer designs. In a
1928. Possibly at the end of 1928, but cer gesture of good faith by Thonet, and in a
tainly by January of 1929, Thonet was adver desire to keep its most prolific designer of
tising Breuer designs and, in a new advertising tubular-steel furniture, Thonet signed a new
practice, crediting the individual designer for contract with Breuer for all of his designs.
his work. Probably in January, but certainly by In early 1929 Lorenz was engaged in a
July, Thonet was selling Breuer cantilevered series of activities that would cast doubts on
aspects of his sale of Standard to Thonet,
create confusion as to who had actually de
signed the cantilevered chairs that Thonet
was producing under its agreement with Breuer;
and, shortly thereafter; plunge all of the parties
into a massive lawsuit that would drag on for
years.
After joining Standard-Mobel in 1928, Lorenz
decided that the chair with the greatest possi
bility for commercial success was the cantilev
ered chair designed by Mies (fig. 66). Mies,
however, rebuffed Lorenz' offers of a business
partnership. Lorenz therefore approached Stam,
designer of the first, if less interesting,
cantilevered chair (fig. 64). Stam, who was
about to leave Germany for Russia, agreed to
discuss a business proposition with Lorenz. At
the same time, Lorenz registered, on 12
February 1929, an armchair version of Stam's
cantilevered side chair, which he claimed to
have designed during 1928.This design, how
ever, may already have been in production by
74 Fig. 72. Thonet armchair B64, tubular steel, as his own design registration for a canti- 75
wood, and cane, 1928. (Collection The Museum levered armchair, held a virtual monopoly on
of Modern Art, purchase.) Following the court cantilevered chair designs. Both B32 and B64
decision, Breuer's armchair design was also chairs were marketed as the "Cesca" chair
reattributed to Anton Lorenz, who as owner (named for Breuer's daughter) only beginning
of Stam's original artistic copyright, as well in 1960.
Thonet under Breuer's name; Thonet now had from the plaintiff in April 1929, along with all
a contractual arrangement with Breuer. of the assets of Standard-Mobel, which in
On 18 June 1929, Lorenz and Stam came to cluded all the other Breuer Standard-Mobel
an agreement whereby Lorenz assumed all designs. Among the contents of the Standard-
rights to the Stam canti levered side chair. Be Mobel workshop were four prototype models
tween July and September of 1929, Lorenz for B33 and B34 that had been made by
sued Thonet, claiming that the firm was pro Standard-Mobel employees, on company time,
ducing two canti levered chair designs that and with company equipment and supplies.
were protected by an artistic copyright (the Even if Lorenz claimed to have had a hand in
Stam chair) or a design registration (the Lorenz their design, he was, at the time, an employee
arm version) in his (Lorenz') name. Finally, in of the company. Therefore the designs were
September of 1929, Lorenz began a new now owned by Thonet.
tubular-steel company, Deutsche Stahlmobel, The County, Supreme, and Appeals Courts
or DESTA, which issued its first catalog in all ruled in Lorenz' favor The Appeal decision
October. The catalog offered both the B33 and stated that (a) there was no proof that Stam's
634 models, as ST12 and SS32.The B33 and chair was an imitation of any previous Breuer
B34 models were sold in Thonet catalogs be model, including the B5 side chair; and that at
Arch. ginning in 1929 and attributed to n most the Stam chair represented "free use of
55 Marcel Breuer." the Breuer model." Therefore, Stam had le
Lorenz' suit was against Thonet; Breuer was gally been able to secure an artistic copyright
not directly involved as a defendant, only as a on his rectilinear, tubular-steel cantilevered
witness. The suit charged that Thonet was chair. The court continued that (b) although it
producing designs that belonged to Lorenz was true that the Stam chair was made of
and for which Thonet had never secured the "lacquered, cast (non-resilient) steel tubing,"
rights. and that the Breuer-Thonet model B33 was
Thonet's case as put forth before the court made from "nickel-plated precision steel tubing,"
stated that (a) the Stam chair (fig. 64) was not the Breuer chair was so similar to the legally
an original invention, that it was based on registered Stam design that model B33 cannot
earlier Breuer designs, especially the,B5 side be recognized as an original design... but
chair (fig. 57), and that Stam should never simply as an imitation of the Stam chair."
have been granted a copyright for a design Finally, (c) Lorenz' registration of the canti
which was not original. WalterGropius, among levered side and armchairs was in his own
others, testified on Thonet's behalf that the name, not in the name of Standard-Mobel. He
Stam chair represented the logical develop was not required to turn over his personal
ment of Breuer's B5 and that it was an imita property when he sold Standard-Mobel to
tion of Breuer's design. Anticipating the Thonet. Lorenz had, the court noted, even
plaintiff s response, Thonet continued that (b) offered to pay Thonet for the time and mate
even if the artistic copyright had been prop rial involved in the manufacture of the four
erly granted, the Stam chair was substantially prototype chairs.
different from model B33 (fig. 57) designed by The result of these decisions was that Lorenz,
Breuer. The B33 could not therefore be an who now owned the original Stam design,'
infringement of the Stam copyright. Finally, (c) was confirmed as the sole owner of an artistic
no matter what the copyright situation, Thonet copyright on the aesthetic or artistic principle
argued it had legally purchased both designs of the straight-legged cantilever in side chairs
BAUHAUS DESSAU, 1925-28
and armchairs. Thonet was forced to make a mind, Eitner (of Thonet) and Breuer had allied
settlement with Lorenz based on previous sales, themselves in a conspiracy to pirate the Stam
and, if Thonet wanted to continue manufactur and Lorenz designs. In what Lorenz termed
ing straight-legged cantilevered chairs, the firm the "Breuer swindle? Breuer had executed the
would have to recognize the patents and reg original working drawings for the Stam chairs,
istrations owned by Lorenz. The trial (at least and then taken the drawings to Thonet,
this aspect of it) finally ended in 1932, after claiming them as his own.
which all Thonet catalogs carried new de The ultimate irony of all this was that Lorenz'
6 signer credits for cantilevered chairs? All side hand was so strengthened that he spent the
chairs were attributed to Stam, all armchairs next decade suing or threatening suit against
to Lorenz. This applied even to the B32, B46, virtually every manufacturer of straight-legged
B55, and B64, on which Thonet continued to cantilevered chairs of any material and de
pay royalties to Breuer. Breuer was denied his scription; he became so mired in court cases
royalties on B30, B33, and B34, and, accord that finding time for other work became diffi
ing to his own account, became so exasper cult. After Breuer designed his vastly different
ated that he ceased to design tubular-steel aluminum furniture for the Embru company in
furniture. 1932, Lorenz forced him, under threat of suit,
Many facts were not, of course, revealed in to form a brief-lived partnership. (It was dis
the court decisions. Concerning the viewpoints solved in 1936.) Under a similar threat, Mies
of the various parties involved, it is known van der Rohe was forced into a partnership
that Breuer regarded Lorenz as a "patent with Lorenz in 1934 that covered all of his
brigand." Lorenz, he felt, had plagiarized his cantilevered designs. Despite this, when Lorenz
designs, taken advantage of him, and care found himself stranded in the United States at
fully orchestrated the entire scenario. Gropius, the beginning of the war in 1939— during a
among others, supported Breuer in this view. visit to a licensee, the Hey wood- Wakefield
Thonet officials felt that Lorenz had misled or Company, to discuss pending lawsuits against
cheated them by withholding certain designs infringers of Lorenz' American patents— Mies
from them when he sold Standard. Further; felt sympathetic enough toward him to extend
they believed that he had cunningly manipu financial assistance.
lated the patents and registrations so that he Even Alvar Aalto was subject to Lorenz'
could convince the court that the designs he threats. In 1937 Lorenz warned Artek, the
owned held precedent over the earlier Breuer Finnish manufacturers of Aalto furniture, that
designs. they had violated many of his (Lorenz') patents
Lorenz, on the other hand, felt that he was for cantilevered furniture. Lorenz had finally
the victim of a gross patent infringement by taken notice of Artek when their annual sales
Thonet, and of a swindle by Breuer. Lorenz began to increase substantially, at the same
saw himself as a businessman with technical time that he was planning to market canti
training who had the ability and knowledge levered wood chairs designed by Mies. With
to help designers exploit their talent and real the outbreak of the war, Lorenz was forced to
ize the full potential of their designs. Archi abandon his attempts to sue Artek.
tects and designers, Lorenz felt, lacked the Lorenz' own company, DESTA,which pro
acumen necessary for good business. He duced designs by Stam, Erich Mendelsohn,
believed in taking every advantage provided Hans and Wassili Luckhardt, and others, was
57 by the law to increase business In Lorenz' liquidated in 1933, at which time Lorenz sold
77
the designs, but not the company to Thonet chair as the Barca Lounger, one of the most
and began to devote his energy to the re popular chairs of the postwar period, one
search and development of reclining chairs. which appeared to be completely unrelated to
He invested all of the money he had been the progressive designs Lorenz had previously
awarded in the Thonet lawsuit, contracted marketed. In 1964 Lorenz died.
with a well-known scientific institute to carry
out extensive research on body dimensions
and mechanics, and with the architect Hans TABLE DESIGNS, 1928
Luckhardt eventually patented mechanisms
and designs for adjustable reclining chairs While this myriad of business maneuvers pro
with tubular-steel frames. After Lorenz immi ceeded during 1927 and 1928, Breuer con
grated to the United States, he contracted tinued to design tubular-steel furniture, none
with the Barcolo Company to market a new, of which was produced by Standard-Mobel.
upholstered version of his adjustable reclining The designs show the considerable range of
mmi
1/ mm
Fig. 74. Table designs B18 (top left), B27 (top 79
right), B26 (center left), B23 (center right),
typing table B21 (bottom left), and etagere
B22 (bottom right), 1928.
Fig. 75. Thonet lounge chair B25, tubular steel 80
and rattan, 1928-29. (Collection Manfred
Ludewig, Berlin.) First sold by Thonet in 1929,
Breuer's design made inventive use of coiled
springs to suspend the seat from the rigid
frame.
Breuer's talents and his prototypical tubular-
steel solutions for different types of furniture.
Most of the designs were first produced by
Thonet at the end of 1928 or in 1929. They
were first offered to the public in a small fold-
out brochure, dating from after April 1929,
which closely followed the format of the earlier
Standard-Mobel brochure. It contained most
of the designs previously sold by Standard-
Mobel, with the exception of the B1 theater
seating, the B4 folding armchair, the Bll arm
chair, and the B13 bed. All of the earlier de
signs offered were identical with the Standard-
Mobel models. Ten new designs were offered.
Tables B18 (fig. 74) and B19 (fig. 73) were
is4<;
among Breuer's most accomplished designs.
Tlionet
Both tables had rectangles of tubular steel
placed within the frame. The boldness of this
member was intended for effect rather than
function, although with heavy glass and the
uses required of a table, some type of extra
bracing was necessary. The use of thick glass
tops above the frames echoed the added rec
tangle of tubular steel and created the illusion
of forms floating in a studied sculptural con
struction. Each of the elements was articu
lated as a separate entity, interacting with the
other forms. The combination of the two
materials was enormously successful, the
insubstantiality of the glass serving to em
phasize the steel structure.
A slightly different effect was achieved in
the B27 table (fig. 74), the first Breuer design
to make use of a more unusual and complex
frame consisting of two identical, essentially
V-shaped or open triangular units that upon
first glance appear to have been made from
two large, open rectangles, arranged in a cross
shape. These elements abut each other but
remain independent, at least to the eye; in
fact, they were screwed together at both con
tact points and, in some examples, were welded
together on the underside of the base.
Related to the B27 was folding table B26
Fig. 76. Thonet armchair B46, tubular steel Fig. 77. Thonet armchair B55, tubular steel 81
and canvas, 1928-29. and canvas, 1928-29. (Collection Manfred
Ludewig, Berlin.) Neither the B46 nor the
similar B55 was a particularly popular chair
during the 1930s, despite the originality of
the designs.
(fig. 74), a design which was only briefly in FURNITUREDESIGNS, 1928-29
mass production. The idea behind it was simple
enough: two rectangles of tubular steel, the The last group of Breuer's tubular-steel furni
base of one shaped to pivot on the other. Once ture, designed for the most part in 1929, were
closed, the tabletop folded, allowing easy stor included in Thonet's largest tubular-steel cata
age. Problems with the design were said to have log the following year. The catalog illustrated
caused this table, along with all of Breuer'sfold approximately thirty models attributed to
ing chairs, to be dropped from the product line. Breuer. In some cases Breuer was credited for
Also offered in the first Thonet steel catalog designs that were not his (see Appendix 1); in
were three less significant designs that were others he was not credited with furniture he is
variations on the B9 stool. Models B21, B22, known to have designed. Among those models
and B23 (fig. 74) all demonstrated the extent adapted from designs that had never been
to which Breuer was able to adapt similar previously mass-produced were table B14 (figs.
designs to a number of different needs and 84, 87), armchair B30, and bed B701.
forms. When, in 1930, Thonet began produc The B25 lounge chair (fig. 75) was made
ing a larger number of designs, the company from a frame based on the B9 stool, with a
went even further in exploiting Breuer's de free-floating seat and back suspended from
signs as well as transferring details. the frame by a pair of coiled springs that were
A
support which fitted into the arms of the chair.
Although the springs stretched under the
weight of the sitter, they were strong enough
so that the overall lines of the chair were not
seriously deformed when it was in use.Yet the
effect for the sitter could be almost that of a
rocking chair where only the suspended seat
I innSiw'HiiillL- *
and back moved within the rigid frame. The
seat and back were in woven rattan which, in
most circumstances, would have been cov
f:
ered by upholstered cushions. Unfortunately IT
this resulted in a somewhat clumsy appear
ance, depending on the considerable bulk of
the cushions.
Armchairs B46 and B55 (figs. 76, 77)
represented a more fanciful chair design, quite
uncharacteristic of Breuer's work. There is no
doubt, however, that he was the designer. The
central feature of both chairs was an unusual
arm that emphatically curved behind the seat,
adding a strong curvilinear element to an
essentially rectilinear design. In both chairs, freely between the arms as a true cantilevered
the backs were formed from a completely design. More unusual was the sense that the
separate length of tube, while the base, front chair was formed from a continuous length of
legs, seat, and arms were all articulated as a tube, beginning with one arm and winding its
single piece. way along the outline of the chair to the end
58 Among the more complex and successful of of the other arm
Breuer's cantilevered chair designs was the The final new design was B54 (figs. 79, 99),
B35 lounge chair (fig. 78). Breuer's idea for a a three-wheeled tea cart which Breuer was to
cantilevered lounge chair was vastly different use in many of his interiors. The top shelf of
from most contemporary designs, where the the cart was removable for use as a serving
original side chair or armchair merely had its tray. With its spoked wheels and pronounced
proportions changed so that it could serve as hardware, it partook of the mechanistic im
a lounge chair. With possible references to the agery that most of Breuer's "styleless" tubular-
club armchair of 1925, Breuer fitted the B35's steel furniture designs espoused. The fact that
cantilevered seat into what might be seen as a the bottom of the frame was prow-shaped,
rectangular volume. The structural frame of and that the design actually moved, reinforced
the chair served to outline diagrammatically the imagery and added a note of wit to
the rectangular box, and the long seat floated the design.
84
ordination, which cannot altogether be experimental house and also the affair with
63 avoided when working in the large, commu the metal chairs seems to have been settled."
nal team effort of the Bauhaus.Themood of Much to everyone's surprise, Gropius him
the students is also partly critical of him. For
self resigned in January 1928. The Director's
G. [Gropius] a great loss, but Breuer'satti
tude of late has become so difficult that resignation was tendered because he felt that
61 there is apparently no other way out he was the real object of much of the recent
criticism of the school, and also because he
In 1927 he married a student, Marta Erps, wanted to engage in independent architec
and moved out of his Bauhaus quarters and tural work, which his administrative respon
into an apartment in the city of Dessau,thereby sibilities had made exceedingly difficult during
further distancing himself from the Bauhaus the preceding years. Moholy-Nagy left the
community. school a few days later, saying, "I can no
Circumstances at the Bauhaus had indeed longer keep up with the stronger and stronger
changed. There were conflicts between the tendency toward trade specialization in the
64 formally oriented members of the faculty (e.g., workshops." In mid-1928 Breuer moved to
Moholy-Nagy) and the more politically oriented Berlin, where he established himself as an
(e.g., Hannes Meyer, who had been brought in architect.
by Gropius to head the new architecture de The unstable economic situation in Ger
partment); Breuer placed himself in the camp many made it extremely difficult for most ar
of the formalists, publicly denouncing Meyer's chitects to find work, and by the end of 1928
emphasis on politics. There was also consid Breuer's only designs that had been realized
erable pressure for the school to produce a — aside from the design of his own apart
larger number of commercially viable designs, ment, which also served as his office— were
which some teachers feared would turn the for furniture. Like so many architects of the
Bauhaus into "a vocational training school twenties, Breuer designed a number of large-
which evaluates only the final achievement scale projects that had little chance of realiza
and overlooks the development of the whole tion. In 1928 and 1929 he designed large
62 man." Finally, outside criticism of the school apartment buildings, hospitals, and a factory.
was again on the rise. In a way, Breuer was more fortunate than
In April 1927, Breuer, along with Herbert many of the older; more established architects,
Bayer, formally submitted his resignation, such as Gropius or Mies. He had an income
effective in October. Breuer's motivations, from royalties on his tubular-steel furniture
finally, were more personal than philosophi and was able to accept a number of small jobs
cal. Evenat so unusual a school as the Bauhaus, which an architect of Gropius' stature might
he felt overwhelmed by his teaching respon have turned down. Beyond that, he now lived
sibilities and yearned to establish his own a very modest bachelor's existence, his mar
architectural practice. Bayer;for his part, wanted riage having lasted only briefly.
to reestablish a graphic-design business.
Gropius urged them to stay on until the end of
the term (spring 1928), and after some discus INTERIORS
sion, they agreed to do so. Ise Gropius noted
in her diary: "At last an agreement with Breuer In 1929 Breuer began to design a number of
has been reached according to which he will significant interiors both for private clients
stay at the Bauhaus. He will get to build an and for several international exhibitions.
85
The unusual entrance hall and cloakroom cleaning products. The spacious living room of
of the Heinersdorff country house outside Berlin the apartment (fig. 82) was provided with
(fig. 80), the first of these, was extensively wooden furniture specially designed by Breuer.
decorated with mosaic tile. The design was The color scheme— more typical of progres
requested by the client and executed by his sive Viennese interiors of the turn of the cen
firm, Puhl-Wagner-Heinersdorff, which special tury than Germany of the 1920s— made use
ized in mosaic tile decoration. Breuer used tile of a dark rug, dark trim, and contrasting wall
as one element in a geometric composition of colors articulating the various parts of the
contrasting colors and surfaces. The unusual room. Lighting was hidden behind long, canted
textures and geometry of the rooms could reflectors that lined the upper parts of the
also be seen in a window (fig. 81) said to have long walls. Although the study and dining
been inspired by beer-mug bottoms and made room (fig. 83) lacked the decorative wall trim,
from concave glass "lenses." The effect was of the design of both rooms reflected a similar
a multiple series of camera lenses, each with a emphasis on precise geometry and simple
slightly different view. Privacy was assured and open spaces.
inside, while it was possible to glimpse, out The one known room of the spacious office
side, a view made up of fragmented images. (fig. 84) was sparsely furnished, and brightly
Through Gropius, Breuer was commissioned lit by the large picture window that filled one
in 1929 to design an apartment in Wiesbaden wall. The large desk with wooden top and
and an office in Mainz for Mr. Harnismacher; thick tubular-steel legs would become the most
president of a large company making shoe- common table used for dining rooms and
••
.1
were painted off white; the window curtains, tables and the like, executed in light cherry
which reached to the floor, were of ecru raw edged with ebonized wood. A desk for the
silk; and the floor was covered with oriental master bedroom (fig. 91) was typical of the
matting. functional, geometrical forms that Breuer de
Dr. Lewin's study (figs. 89, 90) was lined signed for the Lewi n interiors. They possessed
with a new bookshelf system designed by a monumentality and bulk that Breuer reserved
Breuer. Although it was based on what must for wooden cabinetwork. A low dressing chest
have been a commercial standard and bracket (fig. 92), with a large shoe drawer that pivoted
system, Breuer made the standards of shiny out from a hinge near the base, was placed
metal and the shelves of lacquered wood. At below and to the side of a tall, thin dressing
the end of each shelf were two lengths of mirror— a scheme Breuer had used as early
tubular steel which served as bookends as as 1925. The beds were tubular steel and the
well as stabilizers for the shelves. Continuous bedroom chairs were Thonet bentwood.
with the bookshelves on the long wall was a The work that Breuer did as an interior and
series of bright blue metal drawers specially furniture designer and architect received
assembled for notecards and papers, as well greatest recognition through the showing of
as additional shelf and cabinet space. his model interiors and projects at interna
Furniture for the bedrooms consisted of a tional exhibitions. His tubular-steel furniture
number of free-standing dressers, bedside in particular became the subject of much at-
Fig. 89. Bookshelf system, study, Lewin Fig. 90. Study, Lewin house, Berlin, c. 1930. 93
house, Berlin, c. 1930.
tention and discussion, at a time when he had When, four years later; the organizers of the
all but ceased to design in tubular steel. 1930 Salon des Artistes Decorateurs invited
The appearance of a German section at the the Deutscher Werkbund to send an exhibi
Paris Salon des Artistes Decorateurs in 1930 tion of current German design, some eyebrows
was an event that received extensive press were raised; but much of the French design
coverage. Anti-German feeling had been strong community, although unmoved by the intellec
in France since the end of the First World War tual rigor and austerity of the German work,
and was responsible for the exclusion of realized that developments in Germany were
German designers from the celebrated 1925 far too important to be ignored any longer.
Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts The Salon was, in fact, the most solidly estab
Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes, where what lished and most conservative of the French
little avant-garde design that had been artists' groups. A number of progressive
permitted — Le Corbusier's Pavilion de I'Esprit designers, including Charlotte Perriand and
Nouveau and Konstantin Melnikov's Pavilion Rene Flerbst, had seceded to form their own
of the U.S.S.R., for example— had been organization, the Union des Artistes Modernes;
relegated to the outer edge of the exhibition. their first exhibition was to be held shortly
The 1925 Exposition had been dominated by after that of the Artistes Decorateurs. This
the French, and, in particular, by such masters combination of circumstances made the
of the conservative Art Deco style as Emile- appearance of the German designers all the
Jacques Ruhlmann, Sue et Mare, and Dufrene. more controversial.
Fig. 93. Drawing, Apartment for a Boarding- Fig. 94. Apartment for a Boardinghouse-Hotel, 97
house-Hotel, Deutscher Werkbund exhibition Paris exhibition, 1930. Photograph taken from
at the 1930 Paris Salon des Artistes Decora- the metal bridge separating the Gropius and
teurs. The disposition of the furniture was Breuer rooms. From foreground to background:
altered in the final installation of the Breuer room for a woman, kitchenette and bathroom,
rooms. room for a man, and beyond the elevated
wall, the study.
Fig. 95. Room for a Woman, Paris exhibition, Fig. 96. Room for a Man, Paris exhibition, 98
1930. Furnished with a B35 lounge chair, B19 1930. Furnished with B25 lounge chair, B9
table and desk, and specially designed bed stool, B32 side chair, and specially designed
and wall units. cantilevered desk-tables. White pull shades
covered the windows.
ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE IN BERLIN, 1928-31
ideas in construction, city planning, and inte of accordion doors. Standard Breuer book
rior design. Severalfull-scale houses were built, shelves and wall units were used throughout,
and model interior spaces were also exhibited. as was Thonet tubular-steel furniture.
Breuer was not among the original group Visitors entered the exhibition house in the
of architects invited to participate in the exhi sports room (fig. 98), near a wall with gymna
bition. As he explained years later: sium equipment (no such entrance existed in
the actual house plan). Facing the wall were
Mies and the others were angry because I
the five small rooms, or "cabins" —a dressing
was in Paris the year before, at the exhibi
tion, and many others were not. I was, after room, bathroom, bedroom, study, and dining
all, a Hungarian, as Moholy was; Bayerwas room. The last room against the far wall, the
an Austrian, and Gropius was the only kitchen, as well as the second bathroom and
German in the German Pavilion. the guest room, which all appeared in the
plan, were suggested only by closed sliding
But a few weeks before the opening, Mies
doors. Most of the main room (fig. 99) served
called Breuer with an offer:
as the gymnasium or training space, although
Mies said, "Here is a space, you choose one corner was used as a living area (fig.
what you want to do and who you want to 100). The informal and mobile nature of the
carry it off." I had to design it and carry it off living room was suggested by the casual
myselfwith my own contractor...We opened arrangement of furniture and the use of the
in time, Mies didn't —he opened late.
unusually thick gymnasium cushions as a sort
Breuer, with the help of his former student of modular couch. Flexibility was the keyword
and then assistant Gustav Hassenpflug, de in this design. The plan was open, but all
signed a "House for a Sportsman" (actually spaces could be partitioned off when privacy
for a gymnastics teacher), showing it in plans was required. And even when the partitions
(fig. 97), elevations (fig. 97), and a model to all five rooms against the wall were closed,
interior (figs. 98-100); he also designed a "70 communication between them was still possi
Square Meter Apartment." ble, since the various cabinets and storage
Breuer was able to design and build his walls that served to divide them from each
exhibition spaces so quickly because he made other stopped short of the far wall.
use of mass-produced furniture and ele Breuer may have chosen the theme of the
ments (folding screens, oriental matting, gym Sportsman's House because of ideas he was
nasium equipment) that could easily be unable to carry out in an apartment for a
ordered from suppliers. Even the wall units sports teacher he had executed in Berlin the
were based on earlier modular designs, and year before. This much-smaller apartment (fig.
he had entrusted the plans to a Berlin cabinet 101), located on the ground floor of a house,
maker; the specified units were ordered over was divided into a gymnastics floor, through
the telephone, and made of white maple (also which visitors entered, and a minute living
called harewood). area, raised about a foot above it, which
The Sportsman's House, the program for could be either combined or separated by a
which lent itself to open design and simple sliding, multisectioned wall. Fitted into the
furnishing, was a large rectangle in plan. The tiny living space were a desk and B34 arm
interior was broken down into subsidiary func chair, a recessed sleeping alcove before which
tional spaces that could be separated from the stood a B19 glass-topped dining table, a B3
larger sports or training room through the use club armchair; a B9 nesting stool, and a short
99
wall of open metal bookshelves, behind which nishings and materials. He deeply believed,
stairs led upward. In addition, doors led to a for instance, in using the smallest possible
lavatory, storage closet, and a shower room, number of well-chosen objects to do a job,
which also contained a sink and 'cooking and wrote that
cabinet" (presumably enclosing a small stove A few simple objects are enough, when
or hot plate). The entire design was minimal, these are good, multiuse and capable of
squeezed into the least possible space. And variation. We avoid thus the lavish pouring
yet it did not give the impression of being of our needsinto countlesscommoditiesthat
on the one hand overcrowded or on the other complicate our daily lives instead of simpli
69 austere. This was largely due to Breuer's sen fying them and making them easier
sitive use of materials— the elegant lightness His use of a narrow range of furniture was
of his metal-and-glass furniture and his deci tied to a conception popular among progres
sion to face the alcove (in which the couch sat) sive architects and designers at the time-
and the wall adjacent to it with richly figured that only a few standardized furniture types
wood veneers. (Typenmobel) were necessary to fulfill many
In the 1920s and 30s, the design of this and varied uses. Separate desks and dining
type of minimal living space was the subject tables, for example, were discarded in favor of
of particular concern to architects interested a well-designed table that could function as
in mass-housing schemes, as well as to those both. A bed could serve as a couch. As
who regarded the small programs as a design Breuer put it: "One can design it so that it
challenge. Breuer's "70 Square Meter Apart provides seating and lounging space during
ment" (figs. 102, 103), installed next to the the day— which also eliminates the need for
70 Sportsman's House in the 1931 Berlin Bau- extra chairs." Chairs themselves should be
Ausstellung, was his own solution to the prob lightweight and easily movable so that they
lem. This apartment was composed of sleeping can fulfill various functions. A wall unit could
niches, living area, wardrobe, bath, and store books or glassware, clothes or art ob
kitchenette. It was furnished with beds, sev jects; it could also divide or create interior
eral chairs, a strip of wall units, a drawer unit, spaces. In Breuer's interiors the emphasis was
and two tubular-steel designs, both worked always on the form and on adapting it to as
out well before the exhibition: a table and a many uses as possible. And although Breuer
couch. Breuer's 70 Square Meter Apartment, was willing to design one-of-a-kind pieces of
although minimal in its use of space, could not furniture for affluent clients, most of his work
be considered a working-class dwelling be concentrated on the use of versatile, mass-
cause he included costly tubular-steel furni produced furnishings. His fondness for orien
ture, some of which was custom-made. tal matting, which during this period appeared
The essential ideas and vocabulary of in many of his interiors, was not due solely to
Breuer's interior design were already present the beauty of its soft, natural color and its
in his 1927 apartment for Piscator. But during unique texture, but also to the fact that it was
the period 1928-31, especially in such projects less expensive than ordinary carpeting and
as the De Francesco or Boroschek apartment, could be rolled up easily for cleaning. His
he emerged as an increasingly mature, confi ideas on the freeing of floor space dictated his
dent, and sophisticated designer. There was a use of thin and transparent furniture or built-
marked similarity in many of his interiors, in furniture hung from the wall. And his
especially in his repeated use of specific fur strictly utilitarian view of lighting meant that
100
ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE IN BERLIN, 1928-31
in most commissions he made use of the same corners, connected at the front and back by
desk lamps and industrial reflectors. wooden stretchers. Between the arm units a
Breuer's use and reuse of these various ele canvas seat and pivoting back were stretched
ments did not result in monotony or mindless between tubular-steel rods. The chair was
repetition. He saw no need to rework or rein probably designed as part of a set, with a
terpret his ideas merely for the sake of novelty. simple geometrical wooden coffee table and
His ideas (some might say his formula) worked couch of ebonized wood and cane (fig. 82).
well, and they led him to design many of the These designs reflected Breuer's interest in
most interesting and vital interiors of the period. bentwood (and cane), which he had already
used in his B32 and B64 chairs (figs. 71, 72),
FURNITURE designed the year before. The "cube chair"
was a form that had fascinated designers,
During his years in Berlin, Breuer designed because of its potential for geometric abstrac
several examples of seating furniture which, tions, since at least the turn of the century, and
although clearly intended for production, were such architects as Josef Hoffmann, Koloman
never mass-produced. One of the most inter Moser, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier
esting chairs, yet little known, was designed had already tried their hand at it. Most of
for the 1929 Harnismacher apartment (fig. them, however, had chosen to interpret the
82) and was also used in the 1932 Harnis cube as a solid, filling it with soft cushions
macher house (fig. 108).This chair; basically a confined within the hard frame. Breuer's
cube, was formed out of arms of laminated design —typically for his work of this period
wood bent to form squares with rounded — played on the idea of transparency; in this it
108
I»*~ i
• ' KITCHEN r
LIBRARY
-I* I I J
PANTRY
TERRACE LIVING
DINING
TERRACE
Fig. 105. Harnismacher house, Wiesbaden, Fig. 106. Plan of the first floor, Harnismacher 109
1932. Breuer's first house design to be built house, Wiesbaden, 1932.
was located in a corner of its site, oriented
toward the large garden. The contrast with
the adjoining houses was startling.
He saw in vernacular architecture charac was given the opportunity to build his first
teristics that others might have had difficulty entirely new, free-standing house. The com
recognizing. And although the basis of his pleted house (figs. 105-09) was widely pub
interest lay in a deep affection for the forms, lished, a fact which Breuer modestly attributed
he explained it in terms of their strictly rational to the general paucity of building in Europe at
development, which "ultimately standardizes the time.
them as type-forms." The Harnismacher house was a three-story
villa, each floor of which was organized dif
HARNISMACHER HOUSE ferently. Its basic vocabulary was Corbusian,
but certain structural devices, the use of
While in the south Breuer received word that contrasting materials, and the distinctive inte
his former client Harnismacher had finally riors were completely Breuer's. It was sited on
decided to build a house in Wiesbaden, near a hill, and the street side was only two stories
Frankfurt. Breuer designed the house proba high and- had few windows, while the principal
bly during June 1932. Construction was begun facade was to the south, facing the garden. The
in July and completed by December. Although house was a steel-frame and concrete struc
he first returned briefly to Berlin, he spent at ture faced with whitish-gray stucco to which
least the summer in Wiesbaden working on fine pieces of basalt were added to provide a
the house. more textured surface; the exterior staircases
At the age of thirty, seven years after be were reinforced concrete; the projecting ter
ginning his professional career in design, Breuer race walls were of smooth asbestos sheeting;
Fig. 108. Wall unit and armchair, living room, Fig. 109. Library, Harnismacher house, Wies- 111
Harnismacher house, Wiesbaden, 1932. baden, 1932. Somewhat secluded on a wing
of the house which stood between the first
and second stories, accessible by a separate
staircase, the study was furnished with black
lacquered shelves and wall units and with a
reclining chair from the 1929 apartment.
**H I«^|f -"Hf- «"»f >-»l| "<M *<fg -Iffi »n —« nr-jp » m ff
«' f/ /# // ft e (I a r /'
and the garden retaining walls were of rough framed picture windows overlooking the
fieldstone.This combination of widely varying garden. The detailing of this window wall was
materials would characterize Breuer's archi precisely studied; the continuous metal grat
tecture through the rest of his career. ings added the shine and patterning of metal
The east walls of the terrace, which faced to the shelf surface. The interior walls were
the nineteenth-century mansion next door; were painted white, while most of the wooden fur
made of frosted glass. These terraces, braced niture or trim was finished in polished black.
with "nautical cables and marine hardware," Sharp contrast of the various finishes and
together with the strong horizontal lines, strip materials within the bright and unencumbered
windows, and clean whiteness, lent a Medi space was the main device used to achieve the
terranean feel and nautical imagery to the elegant and subdued effect of the room, as it
house, qualities it shared with the work of was in other parts of the house— which were
leading modernist architects of the period. not, unfortunately, well photographed.
The furnishings of the first- and second-
floor living spaces—the ground floor contained SWITZERLAND
a garage and service area —were, for the
most part, taken from the apartment Breuer Toward the end of 1932, Breuer began to
had designed for the Harnismachers in 1929. spend more time in Zurich, where, through
The central and largest space of the first floor his friendship with Sigfried Giedion, he
was the living room (figs. 107, 108), one entire obtained several important commissions. The
wall of which was given over to large metal- first of these was the redesign of the Wohn-
bedarf stores in Zurich and Basel. Wohnbedarf the ceiling, offered themselves for purchase
was one of the first modern home-furnishings while also serving to break up the space. One
stores devoted to the selling of the latest wall was fitted with Breuer's vertical-strip
architect-designed furniture and accessories. system for hanging photographs and became
Founded by Giedion, Werner Moser; and Rudolf itself an additional textured surface in the
Graber, all then associated with the Swiss room. A steel-railinged mezzanine was con
Werkbund, the store sold the furniture of Breuer; structed for additional display space, devoted
Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Max Bill, and Moser, mostly to model rooms or furniture en
among others. Breuer was asked to renovate sembles. It could be reached by a dynamic
the stores, which were to be showcases of the Breuer staircase with canti levered steps that
new interior design. Both stores had large boldly projected into the room, a sculptural
street-level windows to draw people into the object worthy of attention. This type of stair
store. The facade of the Basel branch (fig. 110) case became one of the most common fea
was designed to appear as if it had been cut tures of Breuer's later houses and interiors.
out of a huge panel of corrugated metal. The The design of the store provided a bright and
interior of the Zurich store (fig. Ill) was a open space that served as the perfect back
large, open space, divided by structural pillars drop for the selling of the store's wares.
and punctuated with various hanging elements The association with Giedion led Breuer to
and ensembles of furniture. Photographs of codesign, with the Swiss architects Alfred and
modern buildings, draperies, and grass-mat Emil Roth, the Doldertal flats (figs. 112, 113) in
screens, as well as lighting fixtures hung from Zurich. The apartment buildings were built by
is
37'
33-
-3S
33
Fig. 115. Swiss patent drawing, "Frames for Fig. 116. Second page of Swiss patent draw- 117
Springy Chairs/ filed 31 October 1933 but ings. The designs were intended for produc
identical with the German patent filed in No tion in "bands of metal, wood, or artificial
vember 1932. materials or a combination of these!'
Giedion, Walter Gropius, and, according to climates— an advantage that set the new fur
some accounts, Le Corbusier. The industry niture apart from nickel- or chrome-plated
group met first and unanimously selected the tubular-steel furniture, which was far more
Breuer designs as the first-prize winner. The susceptible to rusting.
second jury which awarded its prize in the A further desirable characteristic of alumi
name of the C.I. A.M., also chose Breuer num was its light weight. Breuer claimed that
unanimously. Breuer's chairs were seen by the an aluminum chair would weigh less than half
judges as highly original conceptions that took as much as a similar tubular-steel chair. This
greatest advantage of the intrinsic qualities became a strong selling point since it meant
of the material. Most of the other entrants that aluminum furniture could be much more
designed chairs that were translations into cheaply shipped and would be far easier to
aluminum of typical tubular-steel or wooden handle. This was especially the case for the
chairs of the period. The band-metal furniture long reclining chairs. The material was
seemed destined to become Breuer's most suc unusually malleable and therefore relatively
cessful furniture project to date, with the un easy to work with. In its alloy form it was also
usual promise of financial reward that had flexible and resilient. An appealing feature of
hitherto eluded him. The unanimous awarding aluminum, and in particular of the alloy used
of the first prize in the Paris competition seemed in the Breuer chairs, was its silverlike appear
only to enhance the possibilities for success. ance. The surface did not require plating with
By the time the first mass-produced Breuer nickel or chrome and could be manufactured
aluminum and band-steel chairs had been put with either a glossy or dull finish. Many con
on the market in 1934, they had already been temporary descriptions refer to the "flat-
73 extensively published in architectural and matte" or "dull-silver" finish of the surface
design periodicals. The material's only real disadvantage for
Aluminum was not, however, at the time, a use in furniture, in fact, when compared to
particularly popular material for furniture tubular steel, was the fact that it is not nearly
design. It was considered too inflexible and as strong. The use of aluminum therefore dic
brittle for use in furniture production and too tated a more complex structural system for
expensive for the marketplace. Although some the chair The simple cantilever of the tubular-
commercial aluminum furniture was made in steel chair had to be replaced by a new system
Europe and, to a greater extent, in the United of auxiliary supports.
States, it was by no means common; and it
was virtually unheard of in the domestic inte
rior. Breuer's designs were among the first to THE CHAIR DESIGNS
lead to a reconsideration of aluminum as a
suitable material for furniture. In his new aluminum designs Breuer's main
The aluminum Breuer chose for use in his concern was to construct a chair that would
chairs was a hard, nonoxidizing alloy with have a second or auxiliary set of supports (in
a particularly high resistance to corrosion. addition to the front legs) rising from the
According to Breuer it was the hardest avail ground member to add stability to the seat,
able at the time. The specific alloy was called and, in certain designs, form the arms and/or
simply "anticorodal," or anticorrosive.The use back of the chair (figs. 115, 116). A noncanti-
of such a nonrusting material would allow levered tubular-steel chair could easily be made
chairs to be used outdoors and in wet or humid from tubing 20 percent thinner. Accordingly,
118
TRAVELS AND DESIGN WORK, 1931-34
fifteen of the patented designs refer to tubular the patent was made in prototype form (fig.
steel. Of those, probably only one model was 118). Breuer; with Embru, made a chair whose
eventually manufactured (fig. 117), and that seat, front legs, and ground members were
only in small quantity. The appeal of the chair, made of bent plywood, while the rear sup
manufactured by S.I.D.A.M. in Belgium, was ports and back frame were made from two
limited. Its close similarity to standard tubular- continuous pieces of aluminum, joined by a
steel cantilevered chairs, on the market for brace below the seat.The awkwardness of the
five or six years, made its selling potential design, despite its lower cost due to the limited
limited. And without large-scale production, use of metal, must have dissuaded any manu
the hoped-for low price could scarcely become facturer from producing the chair.
a reality. The aluminum bands used for these new
Breuer saw the main application of his new chairs were cast in a rectangular shape but
designs to less costly "bands of metal, wood, grooved-out so that the profile formed a double
or artificial material or a combination of these inverted U-shape from side to side (fig. 124,
74 materials." Since, however; unlike tubular upper right). The full width was used only at
steel, some of these materials could not be the rear of the base; once the band was split
either easily welded or riveted, Breuer's newly into the front and back vertical members, the
patented construction called for a wide band section of each was a single inverted U.Where
of material to be slit along its length and the the band became the support for the seat, the
different pieces bent into separate parts. U was filled in with a specially cast piece of
One of the combined models mentioned in metal, in order to accept the rivets that were
Fig. 117. Experimental prototype of aluminum, Fig. 118. Experimental prototype of tubular- 119
wood, and cane side chair, made by Breuer steel side chair, 1932-33. Apparently made in
with the Embru company in Switzerland, Belgium by S.I.D.A.M., a licensee of Breuer's
1932-33. designs.
and backs. Model 301 (fig. 119), as it was
designated in the Wohnbedarf catalog, was
the smallest and least expensive. It was sold
with a molded-plywood seat and back for use
in cafes, restaurants, and offices, and as model
305 with slatted wood seat and back for
gardens and terraces. Both chairs came in
armchair versions and were also available
with frames made of thin bands of steel, a less
costly material than aluminum.
Model 303 (fig. 120)was slightly larger; made
with a more fully articulated back and with
wooden-framed caned seat and back, for use
in restaurants, living rooms, and dining rooms.
Model 307, the largest of these designs,
came with upholstered seat and back and
was intended for use in the home. Neither the
upholstered nor caned model was available
in plain band metal, which was considered
unsuitable for domestic use.
Compared with Breuer's earlier cantilevered
chairs, the lines of these new chairs were less
strictly geometrical. Emphaticcurves, introduced
required to attach the wooden or metal seat into the auxiliary support members beneath
slats. In the original patent designs (fig. 116) the seat and into the shape of the back sup
Breuer illustrated a number of different possi port, fulfilled an important structural function;
ble profiles for the sections of metal. Among not only did they provide much-needed sup
the reasons given for the grooved-out shape port, but they also gave the chair a greater
of the material was that it could thereby "accept degree of resilience. In all of the designs, the
75 ornamentation or bars." In another context pieces of cast aluminum began at the rear of
Breuer suggested inserting rubber strips into the base and split into two pieces. One piece
the grooves at the base to prevent any possi continued along the ground, forming the base,
ble scratching of floors or discoloration of and rose to become the front leg and main
76 carpets part of the seat frame; the other rose to form
Most of the designs in Breuer's patent, and the curved auxiliary support and then con
all but two of the chair designs eventually pro tinued up to form the back. In none of the final
duced, were for upright side or armchairs. Two production versions of the chair did the
lounge-chair designs and two variations on a supporting elements rise above to form an
nesting table model were also manufactured. arm. Rather, the arm was an independent
There were three basic side-chair designs, appendage attached to the underside of the
all of which also came in armchair versions. seat or seat frame and to the back.
The aluminum frames of all three were quite Breuer's aluminum chairs were among the
similar, although there were variations in size, lightest metal chairs of the period. They were
proportion, and materials offered for the seats also unusually flexible and comfortable. The
problematic aspects of these designs rested in cial difference in the lounge chairs was that
the fact that the addition of the auxiliary the seat was both suspended between and
supports (and of separate arms) and the shapes held up by the arms, which were the main
of the backs made the chairs look squat and load-bearing element of the design. In these
compacted. The designs seemed busy, giving models the expression of the cantilever became
the impression that a great deal of material, an emphatic statement, the crucial element
with straight lines crowded next to curved within the design. The cantilever that resulted
lines, had been compressed into too little space. from the continuous lengths of aluminum
Such was emphatically not the case, how forming the ground members, front legs, and
ever, with Breuer's aluminum lounge chairs seat and back frame on each side was so
(figs. 121, 124, 125).Those designs achieved a extreme that the chair would collapse without
structural and aesthetic solution that resulted the additional support given by the arms. Its
in furniture of genuine originality, comfort, treatment was critically different from that in
and refinement. the other designs because of the degree of
Like Breuer's side chairs and armchairs, the freedom with which the seat was allowed to
lounge models were conceived as canti levered move, both vertically and horizontally, as it
structures with additional supports. The cru hung from the arms. This suspended structure
allowed considerable lateral movement, which 122), it was used only behind the armrest,
was unusual but not in any way the result of a where the planar orientation of the aluminum
structural defect; rather, it represented a delib surfaces had to be shifted forty-five degrees in
erate effort to make the chair feel as flexible order to attach the arm to the back of the
and comfortable as possible. Further, the sus chair. Other ways could have beep devised to
pension of the sitter within the frame was attach the arm to the chair back. Despite its
clearly and simply articulated. The result for structural rationale, the twist can be seen as a
the sitter was a design of visual clarity and very elegant and successful aesthetic feature
physical comfort. of the design. Breuer even used the twist at
Breuer's talent for careful detailing in his the base of a desk design where resilience
furniture was demonstrated by several aspects was not an issue and where the need for addi
of the aluminum reclining chairs. Part of the tional support was negligible. This element
beauty of the designs stemmed from the fact bore testimony to the loosening of Breuer's
that the two pieces which began as one at the design vocabulary, away from the strict geom
base and split apart to form the frame of the etry of Bauhaus-oriented design.
chair were designed to follow parallel lines; Breuer designed long and short versions of
the overall shape of the base/arm piece directly this lounge chair, which was available in alu
mirrored that of the lower part of the frame minum or band steel, with upholstery for indoor
(base/front legs and seat). That the angle of use, waterproof upholstery for outdoor use,
the arm was identical to the angle of the seat or with a wooden slat seat for outdoors. (The
was not a structural necessity, nor was it upholstered versions had flat metal slats span
always the choice made in his armchairs— for ning the sides of the frame.) The only varia
example, in the first tubular-steel club arm tion between the longer and shorter versions
chair. The original model for the reclining chair; of the chairs was the shape of the headrest.
shown at the competition, had a completely On the long chair it was higher and more
different shape (fig. 122); there the arm sup
port was completely rounded as it descended
from the back to the floor.
A more unusual element was the twist that
the aluminum bar was given behind the
wooden armrest (figs. 121, 125). This element
was an idiosyncratic feature with a very dis
tinct function; it was added to give resilience
and strength to the member. The turning or
twisting of the material added strength to the
arm at a critical stress point; the twist diffused
the load applied to the back part of the arm. In
the original patent drawing, Breuer used it
only at the base of a chair, where extra sup
port and resilience were desired. In produc
tion models of the thinner band-steel chairs,
the arm was twisted on both sides of the
armrest. In the aluminum chairs, including the
variant shown at the Paris competition (fig.
emphatically contoured to the sitter's neck rooms, winter gardens, windows, and store
and back, while the short chair had a simple decoration. They were also occasionally used
straight back; for an additional charge, how as magazine racks.
ever, the more delicately shaped headrest was As happened so often to Breuer, the early
available on either the aluminum or steel promise of commercial success these designs
models of the short chair. seemed to hold did not materialize. Despite
The final aluminum designs were two tables. the many contracts and advances he held for
The first, a set of four nesting tables, was a the production of the chairs, only Embru and
translation of Breuer's Bauhaus tubular-steel Wohnbedarf in Switzerland were able to make
stools into aluminum with rectangular cross a success of manufacturing and selling the
section.The only difference was that the wooden designs. All of the other contracts were even
tops were attached to the top of each metal tually terminated with little actually having
member, rather than being inserted between been produced. Lack of sales, contractual dis
the side members. agreements, and the interference of Anton
He also designed a set of three flower or Lorenz, who entered Breuer's business life once
garden tables (fig. 123).These were not nesting again in 1935, all played a part.The final blow
tables, but were made in different sizes from to his hopes for the aluminum furniture was
the same rectangular-sectioned aluminum. Their the diversion of metal production for military
tops were made of aluminum rods. The tables purposes in European countries preparing for
77 were advertised as being suitable for living the Second World War.
j>EVErLOPW=N7~ IN PL AN fftONl A
Fig. 124. Drawing of aluminum lounge chair, Fig. 125. Frame for reclining chair, aluminum, 125
1935. (Collection Pritchard Archive, Univer steel, and wood. (Collection City of Bristol
sity of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.) Drawn in Eng Museum and Art Gallery.) The flat bands of
land and sent to Tubecraft Ltd, who expressed steel were used to support an upholstered
interest in producing Breuer's design, this cushion. This chair was originally owned by
drawing demonstrated the shape of the chair Crofton Gane and used in his Bristol home
before bending, the profile of the aluminum, designed by Breuer.
and other details of construction.
Englandand Isokon
1935-37
126
ing for the young Hungarian then living in partnership with Yorke would not provide suffi
Central Europe. However, his somewhat itin cient income; like Gropius, he sought other
erant life, and the uncertainty of his current possibilities for employment. He had corre
project (the Doldertal flats), led him to think sponded for some time with Whitney Straight
seriously of moving to England. of Luminium Ltd about the possible produc
Yorke and Breuer began corresponding tion of his 1932 aluminum or tubular-steel
about the possibility of Breuer's coming to furniture. But by August 1935, shortly before
England to form a partnership with Yorke. Emi his arrival, negotiations had broken down.
gration to England was not possible without Several proposed joint ventures between
proof that one had savings as well as a steady Pritchard and Gropius, mostly for modern
income— partnership in a business greatly housing developments, were never realized
facilitated admission. for a variety of reasons, including antagonism
By April of 1935 Breuer was waiting for defi toward such novel buildings on the part of
nite word from Yorke and, in expectation, was local authorities. Gropius and Pritchard had
taking English lessons. During the summer of also been discussing plans for the formation
1935 he visited England for at least one month, of a furniture-producing branch of Isokon since
presumably to make final arrangements for early 1935. Gropius insisted that Breuer would
his move. In October of 1935, one year after have to be a part of any such venture in view
Gropius had arrived, Breuer moved to England. of his extensive experience designing furni
Breuer was fully aware that his architectural ture; Pritchard readily agreed.
Will
FOR EASE FOR EVER
cofounders, the architect Wells Coates, to
design the first International Style apartment
building in London, Lawn Road Flats, which
ISOKON, FOR EASE,FOR EVER was completed in 1934. At one time the home
of Agatha Christie, Gropius, Breuer, and
Jack Pritchard is a unique individual who was Moholy-Nagy, it was, at least for England, a
the driving force behind several attempts at radical modern building which in its overall
introducing modern architecture and design design and the cooperative nature of its organi
into England. Born in 1899 in London and zation and daily life reflected the ideas of
educated in engineering and economics at Pritchard and the principles of Isokon. It was
Cambridge, Pritchard has a deep interest in against this background that Pritchard began
design and design education, particularly as talking to Gropius about the possibility of
taught and practiced at the Bauhaus. After beginning a new company devoted to the
marrying his wife Molly, a bacteriologist, he manufacture of furniture.
went to work for the Venesta Plywood Com The Isokon Furniture Company (fig. 127)
pany in 1925. FHesaw great potential for new was established at the end of November or
uses of plywood and was responsible for beginning of December 1935. As Pritchard
Venesta's hiring Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, later explained:
and Charlotte Perriand to execute a Venesta
The businesswas set up in order to exploit
plywood exhibition stand in 1930 at the Build the growing demand for modern furniture.
ing Trades Exhibition in London, as well as Our object was first to establish a good-will
commissioning Moholy-Nagy to design mag for authentic modern furniture in the high
azine advertisements for Venesta. In 1930 and price market and secondly to develop from
80 1931 he traveled to see the Weissenhof hous that position to the mass market
ing settlement and the Bauhaus, making the Following the original definition of Isokon,
latter trip with his friends Serge Chermayeff he set forth in more formal terms the policies
and Wells Coates, both of whom were strongly of the new furniture company:
influenced by modernism. Pritchard was also
quite active in the important Design and Indus The general principle governing the policy
will be in the designing, making and distrib
tries Association and the new Modern Archi
uting of furniture, fittings, and equipment
tectural Research group (MARS), the English which will help to makecontemporary living
chapter of the C.I.A.M. pleasanter,comfortable and more efficient.
Pritchard 's most impressive accomplishment Uniformity in character and design, com
was his leading role in the founding of the bined with variety and individuality of each
81 Isokon Company established in 1931 to pro item, should be achieved
mote and realize modern design. The term
was a contraction of Isometric Unit Construc Pritchard's extensive experience with ply
tion, and, as explained by Pritchard: wood, and his faith in it as a useful material,
130
ENGLAND AND ISOKON, 1935-37
making them not from conventional plywood the chair still lacked sufficient strength at this
(which is made from layers of veneer glued critical point.
with the grain of adjoining plies at right angles), During the 1950s and '60s, Pritchard con
but from simple laminated veneers all glued tinued working on the chair, with Breuer's
with the grain running in the same direction. assistance via transatlantic corresppndence.
The result, thought Breuer; would be a more The ears were dispensed with and the seat
flexible seat. Pritchard, on the advice of Venesta, was attached by means of two horizontal
maintained that the seats would not be strong members spanning the entire width of the
enough for normal use, and the material for seat. These lateral members were inserted into
the seat remained unchanged. each side of the frame just as the ears had
The most serious problem resulted from the been; the seat was placed on top of them. The
attempted translation of the aluminum chair cross members thus carried the weight for
into plywood. Whereas the aluminum chair merly carried only by the seat. This finally
could deflect from side to side with little or no solved the problem.
adverse effect to the structural integrity of the Other subsequent modifications included the
frame or arms, in the wooden chair this free alteration of the pitch of the seat.The shape of
dom of lateral movement led to the loosening the seat, and therefore the size of the supporting
of the mortice-and-tenon joint of the seat and frame, also underwent several changes. The
arm, and to the weakening of the laminates of proportions of the chair were gradually
the arm itself, into which the seat was fitted. changed, as were several details, most nota
Breuer attempted to overcome this weak bly the "split" articulation of the base. The
ness by strengthening the arm, placing a per original version had clearly expressed the dif
pendicular strip of wood under it.This strip, or ferent construction of the plywood chair as
fin, added in early 1936, gave the arm a opposed to its aluminum model: that the base
T-shaped section and provided additional sup and frame were made from two entirely sepa
port to the main load-bearing element of the rate lengths of wood, not from a single piece
design. The first Isokon lounge chairs sold split in half. In later versions there was no
commercially, as well as all those later pro attempt to articulate the rear of the base as
duced, contained the fin; other modifications two separate pieces; rather; they were made to
were introduced when it proved insufficient to appear as one piece. Finally, the gentle rise in
solve the entire problem. the long outer base piece, a feature found in
In the first versions of the chair, the seat Breuer's tubular-steel and aluminum furniture
was attached to the frame by a mortice-and- and designed to add even more resilience to the
tenon joint. The seat board was cut with two frame, was turned into a pronounced hump.
plywood "ears" protruding from each side These modifications of the chair, added as
of the seat. These ears were fitted and glued "improvements!' resulted in what was undoubt
into the frame below the sitter's calf and be edly a more structurally sound design, but
hind the back. In some early versions of the also diminished the visual impact of the origi
chair the laminates of the plywood seat had nal. The problem posed was, and is, a signifi
begun to come apart or were cracking around cant one for designers and producers: how
the area of the ear. In a second version of 1936, could one reconcile the original, aesthetically
the ears were reinforced by the addition of an more satisfactory solutions with the later; less-
extra layer of veneer around the area of each interesting models, which benefited from the
ear. Despite these changes, some examples of experience of years of use?
MlVJ
I I Breuer designed at least ten variants of the wood. It was as economical and compact as a
Isokon lounge chairs, none of which were put nesting-table design could be.The same mate
into production, but all of which he patented rial was used as that employed for the seats of
(figs. 129, 130). In all of these designs the the lounge chair. At first, both were made in
principal idea remained the same: a plywood Estonia by Venesta for Isokon, and both
frame made of canti leveredelements that would required only a simple one-step molding proc
provide a resilient structure onto which the ess.They were later manufactured in England.
seat would be applied. In all of the designs The shape of the tables, especially the side
resilience was sought not only through the and legs, represented something completely
design of the frame or of the seat, but through new in Breuer's design. Although a structural
maximizing the possibilities for spring in both. rationale can be found for the shape, the
In none of the chairs was the design of the tables nonetheless partook of a freer sense of
frame continuous. form, characterized by curved and animated
shapes, which would become more common in
furniture, especially plywood furniture, of the
OTHER ISOKON FURNITUREDESIGNS 1940s. (The freedom of the cutout-plywood
shape began to interest Breuer increasingly
In February of 1936, Breuer designed a set of at this time.)
plywood nesting tables (fig. 131) that were In order to assure the stability and struc
also based on an earlier design: ten tubular- tural integrity of the small, thin tables, a wide
steel nesting stools designed at the Bauhaus expanse of wood was necessary at the top of
in 1925-26. Their translation into wood a each side. As the legs descended from the
decade later reflected not the exact design of table top, less support became necessary as
the original, but rather the overall conception long as the legs were sufficiently stabilized
applied to a completely different material. The against possible lateral movement at the top.
new design for plywood allowed an advance Eventually Breuerdesigned the table with added
over the original model, since the table could bracing between the legs. Although this design
now be cut and bent from a single piece of ply was patented it was never produced, since the
extra work and material meant that the low by making the back from a separate piece of
cost of the table could not be maintained. plywood, attached to the underside of the
The nesting-table design was enlarged for seat. Although this solution was not success
a dining table that Breuer designed around ful and the first version of the chair was
the same time and also patented during the abandoned, it did provide an idea for the final
83 summer of 1936 This design, as eventually solution for an Isokon stacking chair.
produced, was altered by the five-piece con The stacking chair that was finally manu
struction of the table, necessary because the factured and sold by Isokon (figs. 134, 135)
table was too large to make from a single was a far more complex but only slightly less
piece of plywood. The top was made from a problematic design. It dated from late 1936.
single piece that overlapped the four legs, Less homogeneous in design, it lacked the
each one of which was reinforced by a vertical structural and visual continuity characteristic
fin that ran at a perpendicular the entire length of Breuer's chairs. Nine pieces were required
of the leg. Another variant of the table design for the construction of each stacking side chair.
(fig. 132), not put into production, had a series Two pairs of legs were spanned by wide ply
of overlapping supports that appeared to be wood braces running from front leg to rear.
made from smaller sizes of the table nested The four legs and braces were covered with
within, and attached to, the underside of the an extraordinarily thin plywood seat, which
table, thereby connecting and supporting the was intended to add resilience to the chair.
top and the legs. Attached to the rear legs and back of the
Breuerdesigned several versions of an Isokon seat, and passing through the seat at the rear,
stacking chair. In the design of seat and legs, was the back brace (fig. 134), to which was
the first model (fig. 133) closely resembled the screwed the same back used in the first design.
nesting table. Continuous with the seat was a Making the chair from so many parts and
back support, or brace, to which was attached dispensing with the careful bends required in
a small back with a curved top for easy han the first design eliminated the problem of
dling. The idea of a chair made from only two weak areas of plywood. Everyone professed
pieces of wood, lightweight and stackable, satisfaction with the chair, and it was put into
and of modern design, seemed perfect for the
marketplace. Pritchard thought it would be
Isokon's most successful model. But the back
brace was not strong enough to support the
back, and the chair suffered also from an
overall lack of stability. An armchair version of
the stacking chair, also designed in 1936 and
known only in drawings, was plagued with
similar problems.
Breuer and Pritchard thought they could
solve the problems in the chair's designs first
by stretching braces between the front and
back legs underneath the seat; although this
was successful, the number of chairs that
could be stacked in a pile was reduced. Second,
they sought to prevent the back from breaking
production. Yet it too suffered from an overall the firm never prospered. Yet the Isokon ven
lack of stability. It had no inherent strength; ture was one of the highlights of the brief life
everything was dependent on glued or bolted of early modernism in England, and Breuer's
joints— of which there were too many. long chair influenced many furniture design
This final version of the Isokon stacking ers and manufacturers in the years to come.
chair was never designed as an armchair, for
the complexity of the design made the addi HEAL'S SEVEN ARCHITECTS EXHIBITION,
tion of an arm virtually impossible. Breuer's 1936
desire to design a new stacking armchair led
him to work on a new aluminum model, but At the same time that Breuer continued to
no photos or drawings of that chair survive, work on the Isokon chairs, he undertook a
and recollections vary as to its appearance. number of different projects for both furniture
Although Isokon did manage to stay in and architectural design. In 1936 he was
business for a few years, producing a modest commissioned by Heal & Son, the venerable
number of designs by Breuer, Gropius, Harry London firm of furniture dealers, to provide
Mansell, Egon Riss, Wells Coates, and Jack designs for an exhibition of furniture by seven
Pritchard, it constantly had to face the kinds architects. The exhibition was arranged by
of difficulties often encountered in new- ven Gropius' partner, Maxwell Fry. Breuer's space
tures. The fact that certain parts and certain was devoted to a living room (fig. 136) with a
models were made in Estonia led to problems finely detailed wall unit, "metal plastic" wall
of long-distance communication. Unforeseeable paneling, and a bent-sycamore lounge chair.
delays and mistakes had both parties at wit's
end on more than one occasion. Experimenta
tion with molded-plywood furniture was rela
tively recent. And although there was the
example of Aalto in Finland (fig. 137)— he
had been designing successfulmolded-plywood
furniture since 1931— most of the "bugs" in
Isokon's designs could not be ironed out of the
production process; for example, problems
were found with glues unable to withstand
heat and humidity. The taste of the English
public was another problem. And even though
Pritchard was pleased with the rate of three to
six Isokon long chairs produced per week in
1938, the output was insufficient to guarantee
a secure future for Isokon. Finally inevitably,
there was the coming of the Second World
War, which completely destroyed Isokon's
chance for large-scale success.
Despite the fact that Breuer's Isokon long
chair especially has always been held in high
esteem, it has never sold in large quantity. And
despite Pritchard's attempts to revive Isokon,
Fig. 136. Living room for Heal's 7 Architects Fig. 137. Alvar Aalto, armchair, bent plywood 138
Exhibition, 1936. Through the many published with upholstery, manufactured by Artek,
projects and exhibitions he designed while Finland, c. 1933. Aalto's first chair designs
briefly in England, Breuer's work became were said to have been inspired by Breuer's
widely known. Bauhaus tubular-steel furniture; during the
1930s Aalto's bent-plywood chairs had a strong
effect on Breuer and virtually all designers
working in wood.
ENGLAND AND ISOKON, 1935-37
steel and glass pier table with a semicircular except for a low black sideboard with glass
top, beneath which was an electric heater. doors placed against it. The opposite wall,
Plain gray carpeting covered the floor, and also painted white, was hung with a long
cream-colored curtains hung at the windows. horizontal band of black-lacquered wall cab
The room was further opened to light by the inets, some with drop-down wooden fronts,
enlargement of the windows over the desk others with clear sliding glass fronts. The
and by the glass doors that opened onto the aluminum side chairs were upholstered in
garden. Breuer's aluminum chairs were used "porcelain-blue fabric stitched with lines of
87 throughout. raised white thread." The table was black-
The adjacent dining room (fig. 140), one lacquered birch with legs to match. The floor
end of which also opened onto the garden, was covered with Indian-red carpeting.
was a strikingly dramatic room owing to the The first-floor drawing room (fig. 141) had
sparseness of the furnishing and the undulat light maple paneling on the walls and gray
ing white asbestos wall. The wall, which had carpeting on the floor. Here the ceiling was
a heater placed in its middle, functioned as a white with a slight bluish tint. The entire room
powerful decorative element and was left bare was oriented around the only working fire-
Fig. 139. Garden room, Gane house, Bristol, Fig. 140. Dining room, Gane house, Bristol, 140
1935. Photograph taken from garden side of 1935. The undulating asbestos wall created
room, looking toward the entrance hallway an unusually dynamic spatial effect in the
with tubular-steel staircase. The semicircular room.
steel-and-glass pier table was a design Breuer
had used in the study of the 1930 Paris exhi
bition and would later repeat in the Ventris
apartment and Frank house.
ENGLAND AND ISOKON, 1935-37
HMH
Fig. 141. Living room. Gone house, Bristol, Fig. 142. Bedroom, Gane house, Bristol, 1935. 141
1935. The room contained a large number of The beds were direct translations of Breuer's
specially designed wooden pit ces, including earlier tubular-steel beds into bent plywood.
the Aalto-inspired armchair.
plete, Gone commissioned Breuer to design purpose of the pavilion, which was the dis
his firm's exhibition pavilion for the July 1936 play of furniture. Much of the plywood floor
Royal Agricultural Show in Bristol (figs. ing was covered with simple rugs to allow the
143-45). The pavilion was a marked depar wooden furniture to be seen against a back
ture from Breuer's earlier work and gave him ground of a different material. The sense of
the opportunity to demonstrate his talents to freedom of the pavilion and of the interior
a wide audience, especially through its exten came not only from the overall openness of
sive publication. The pavilion was designed the house, but also from such details as the
solely for the display of Gane's furniture, and gentle curve of the living-room wall, a fea
although perceived by much of the public as a ture seldom seen at this time in domestic
house, it did not conform to the usual domes interiors. The overall success of the building
tic requirements, since it lacked a kitchen and relied heavily on the contrasts of light and
sanitary facilities. dark, smooth and rough, transparent and solid
The open planning of the pavilion and the materials.
details of construction were completely Miesian Of singular importance in Breuer's work
in origin. The structure was made of local was his use of the local stone, which was
Cotswold stone on concrete footings with roof handled in the traditional squared-rubble fash
and structural supports of wood. Large plate- ion. His willingness to introduce regional
glass windows, some sliding, opened up the materials and construction techniques served
interior to the outside. Birch plywood was to bring the new and startling modernist aes
used on the interior of some of the rough thetic somewhat closer to the local popula
stone walls and also for flooring. tion. This remained the case when Breuer
The interior of the house (fig. 144) was an moved to the United States and absorbed the
exercise in open and flexible planning. The vernacular forms of New England architecture.
architectural impact of flat plywood -covered It would, however, be a mistake to see Breuer's
walls and the wide and open plate-glass win handling of stone and the use of the curved
dows at times threatened to overwhelm the interior wall as completely original ideas; they
derived from Le Corbusier's Pavilion Suisse
(1930-32) in Paris, which Breuer must have
known well. In fact, the steady integration of
masonry into Breuer's work during the next
several decades owed a great deal to Le
Corbusier, more, perhaps, than Breuer would
ever acknowledge.
LIVING R M Breuer also undertook the installation of a
London apartment for Mrs. Ventris and her
u r-1 a young son in 1936. The apartment was in a
new, modern apartment building referred to
as Highpoint, in Highgate, designed by Berthold
PERCDLA OVER Lubetkin and his Tectongroup in 1935. Lubetkin
was a Russian-born architect who had emi
grated to England, where his firm not only
constructed an unusually large number of Inter
national Style buildings, but also served as a
itm
Fig. 143. Breuer & Yorke, plan, Gane Pavilion, 142
Royal Agricultural Show, Bristol, 1936.
W 3
Fig. 144. Breuer & Yorke, interior, Gone Pavil Fig. 145. Breuer & Yorke, Gane Pavilion, Royal 143
ion, Royal Agricultural Show, Bristol, 1936. Agricultural Show, Bristol, 1936. Although
The open planning, the attempt to merge or largely based on the ideas of Mies for its plan
at least bring together interior and exterior, and on Le Corbusier for the extensive use of
the use of rough masonry with glass and ply rough masonry and a curved interior wall,
wood, would all become typical of Breuer's the Gane Pavilion suggested the direction
work. Breuer's work would take during the coming
years.
iilJM. *•««»*«"
to use a fireplace located below a flue, Breuer ble, the heavy upholstered furniture he de
chose to use the heater as a "social focus" of signed for the apartment suggested a new
the room. (Although the idea was intriguing, view of the possibilities of design for interior
what the room as designed by Breuer pre spaces. In particular, he designed a cutout-
cisely lacked was a central focus.) Among the plywood chair and couch (figs. 147, 148) for
items of specially designed furniture were a Mrs. Ventris with eccentric, organic forms that
polished sycamore gramophone cabinet hung prefigure much of the furniture he would design
from the wall but also supported by two in America between 1938 and 1940. They
tubular-steel legs, and a pair of cocktail cup became massive architectural elements that
boards, also in sycamore, with polished blue served to define the space of the room while
interiors; one of these was hung in the corner; also making it less open or flexible.
rising to the top of the walls, while the other The Ventris dining room (fig. 149) was the
sat on the floor. Attached to the side of the usual but completely successful combination
upper one was an adjustable table lamp. Most of elements, which in the Ventris apartment
of the lighting in the house consisted of reflec included an Isokon table design in black lami
tors attached to the upper wall. nated wood. The floors of the dining and
Although Breuer had always attempted, living rooms were covered with white woolen
through the use of tubular-steel furniture and pile carpet.
of wall units lifted above the interior floors, to The bedrooms were fitted with built-in fur
open up the interior space as much as possi niture: desks, bookcases, and cabinets in the
Fig. 147. Breuer & Yorke, living room, Ventris Fig. 148. Armchair, Ventris apartment, London, 145
apartment, London, 1936. 1936. The freely cutout sides of the chair pro
vided the basis for Breuer's later free-form
chairs and couches.
that Gropius told Breuer that he would try to steel or aluminum furniture. His designs were
obtain a teaching position for him. eventually rejected by all. Schemes to design
During the summer of 1937 Breuer sailed to furniture, or act as an advisor for Heal & Son
the United States, ostensibly to visit Gropius, and Simpson Ltd, were short-lived. But com
but also to investigate the possibilities for pared to many architects, Breuer designed
American production of his Isokon and Embru and built a surprising amount in England.
aluminum furniture. Before he left, Yorke He designed what might be called the most
warned him that he would probably not be important example of modernist furniture in
returning. Yorke was right. In the fall of 1937 England: the Isokon long chair. He designed
Breuer received an appointment to teach ar one of the finest interiors of the period: the
chitecture at Harvard. He returned to England Gane house. And he also designed one of the
briefly at the end of the year to wrap up his busi most interesting and successful modern build
ness affairs. ings in England: the Gane Pavilion at the
Breuer left England after less than two full Royal Agricultural Fair. At a time when most
years of residence. Isokon continued, although British designers ignored what Breuer called
still struggling. Attempts had been made to the New Architecture, and when only a hand
interest a number of English manufacturers, ful seemed to have an ability to work com
including Pel, Cox, Duncan Miller, Metal Furni fortably within the new modernist mode, it
ture Works Ltd, London Aluminium Co., and was Breuer who provided many of the best
Luminium Ltd, in producing Breuer's tubular- examples of modern design work in England.
Fig. 149. Breuer & Yorke, dining room, Ventris Fig. 150. Breuer & Yorke, bedroom, Ventris 146
apartment, London, 1936. The dining table apartment, London, 1936. Breuer's designs
was similar to the model shown in fig. 132. for dressing mirrors and tables or cabinets were
always accomplished; those in the Ventris
apartment were particularly successful.
The United States
1937-67
147
that were much imitated even into the 1950s. largely confined to offices, restaurants, and
Much of the credit for developing this new domestic kitchens. For the most part, it was
American version of a modern architecture still not considered appropriate for use in the
must go to Breuer. For although the Gropius- home. The use of plywood furniture, and of
Breuer partnership was a true collaboration, natural-finished wood, on the other hand, be
it was often the ideas and hand of the younger came widespread in American interiors of this
Breuer that determined the ultimate appear period, and reflected the broadening influence
ance and detailing of the buildings. of Aalto and other Scandinavian designers.
While Gropius and Breuer built houses to
gether and taught at Harvard, Breuer also
continued to design furniture. His furniture BRYN MAWR DORMITORY FURNITURE
projects were mostly confined to the years
1938-42, 1944-45, and 1948-49. Most of the When Bryn Mawr College began building a
designs, some of which were actually rede new Gothic dormitory in 1937, the James E.
signs, were for various types of cutout-plywood Rhoads Residence Hall, it was decided that
8 furniture. Although Breuer had designed ply the furniture would be modern? The idea of
wood furniture for years, his concentration on holding a competition for the dormitory furni
the material in the United States was related ture was discussed, but was abandoned be
to contemporary American taste, which much cause of the lack of time and funds required
preferred the warmth of wood to the shine of for such an undertaking. After an unsuccessful
metal. Metal furniture was produced in large search for appropriate furniture in stores in
quantity in the United States, but its use was New York and Philadelphia, it was decided to
Fig. 151. Gropius and Breuer, entrance, Gropius Fig. 152. Gropius and Breuer, staircase, Hag- 148
house, Lincoln, Mass., 1938. In the Gropius gerty house, Cohasset, Mass., 1938. A particu
house, the delicate handling of the vertical larly fine example of Breuer's dynamic treat
wood paneling and glass bricks was one of the ment of staircases, it had many imitators dur
many indications of Breuer's unique talent for ing the 1940s.
careful detailing in his buildings. The lamp had
been made in the Bauhaus metal workshop.
Fig. 153. Gropius and Breuer, Breuer house, residence") was dominated by the warm tones 149
Lincoln, 1939. View from the living room look of redwood, grass matting, and stone, all
ing down to the dining room and up to the within a spatially complex yet eminently sat
second-floor hall and bedroom. Breuer's first isfying design.
house for himself (built as a small "bachelor's
send a set of general specifications to Breuer back, and thick wooden dowel supports
at Harvard and request designs. The specifi stretched between the sides of the frame. Each
cations for a dormitory-room set of desk and side of the frame was made from two pieces of
chair, dresser, mirror; and bookshelves were cutout plywood. The front legs and main part
sent to Breuer at the end of 1937 or beginning of the seat frame on each side were made
of 1938.The designs he offered were accepted, from a single L-shaped piece of plywood; the
and work on prototypes was begun shortly rear legs and back frame were designed as a
thereafter at Harvard. By March 1938, models long upright that bulged out at the center;
of the furniture were sent to the College and providing a wider area of contact between the
were returned for minor modification. And by two pieces. In the first version of the chair;
October of 1938, when the dormitory was both the seat and back were made from a
officially opened, the new furniture (fig. 155) series of thick dowels covered with what ap
was in place. It was greeted with praise by pears in surviving photographs to be uphol
College and alumnae press. stery. In the final version, the seat and back
The Bryn Mawr desk chair was made from were made from solid wood, while two dowels
cutout-plywood sides, a solid wood seat and were left exposed behind the seat where the
Fig. 157. Staircase and first-floor landing, Frank Fig. 158. Gropius and Breuer, dining room, 153
house, Pittsburgh, 1939. View from the dining Frank house, Pittsburgh, 1939. Breuer de
room. Both the staircase and couch were signed the furniture, including the dining
emphatically curved to echo the exterior of tables with lucite legs and the unusual
the house. cantilevered side chairs and armchairs, as well
as the lighting, most of which consisted of
metal wall fixtures providing indirect light
ing.
Fig. 159. First-floor study, Frank house, Pitts Fig. 160. Game room, Frank house, Pittsburgh, 154
burgh, 1939. The exuberance of the furniture 1939. This was a large, open space located
and interior design was considered unusual, behind the entrance and main staircase (seen
not to say bizarre, even at the time of build rising to the left). The use of calfskin uphol
ing. The console to the left of the wall unit stery was fashionable during the 1930s.
housed controls to heating, lighting, and hi-fi
equipment.
Fig. 161. Dressing room, Frank house, Pitts Fig. 162. Armchair, Frank house, Pittsburgh,
burgh, 1939.The rooms on the second floor of 1939. The piece was one of a set of geomet
the house were elaborately fitted with built-in rical designs for the lounge area surrounding
cabinetwork. the fireplace on the second-floor landing.
floors, and a variety of wall coverings were the disintegration of the rectangle into freer
used, ranging from pink-copper material de shapes.. .there is a new and impressiveevi
signed by Anni Albers in the master bedroom dence that contemporary architecture is
to an Indian print in the guest bedroom. entering a new phase, richer,more assured,
91 The game room (fig. 160), on the ground and more human.
floor just beyond the main staircase, had a The critic wrote in equally approving terms
dark oak parquet floor, walls of fieldstone and about the interiors and the built-in furniture,
plaster, and furniture made from American but not about the free-standing furniture:
birch and upholstered with spotted black-
and-white calfskin. Beyond the game room The upholsteredchairs on the other hand,
was the swimming pool, along with various represent a very personal expression of
tasfe. Essentiallythese piecesare a continu
work and storage rooms.
ation of Breuer's earlier work... but the
There were at least ninety pieces of furni frequently extravagant shapes and bizarre
ture specially made for the Frank house, and combinations of material do not fulfill the
well over twenty lighting units, all designed promiseof first expectation.
by the architects. Most of the furniture was
made by the New York cabinetmaking firm of In many respects, at least in terms of the
Schmieg & Kotzian, while some fourteen pieces vocabulary of materials and their application
were made by Harry Meyers Co., also of New to the house, the Frank house was similar to
other Breuer projects and Gropius and Breuer
York. The furniture was specified and built
during 1940 and was in place by late summer collaborations. What made it so unusual was
the lack of restraint in terms of the variety of
of that year.
materials and forms employed; the results did
In the Frank house the architects were un
indeed appear to be extreme. The explanation
doubtedly seeking a richness and diversity of
for this lies partially with the elaborate pro
form, material, and color. All of the materials
gram requested by the clients and the fact that
and finishes were natural ones. There was a
the plans had to be enlarged several times
specific and intentional contrast between the
during the period of design. Breuer excelled
simple geometry of the house and the free
when budget restrictions were tight. In the
and complex shapes of the furniture. All of the
Frank house, given virtual freedom to purchase
formal problems were posed and answered
or design whatever was desired and to experi
by the designers themselves. They were not
ment as he wished, he exercised little restraint.
imposed by the clients, whose demands were
Even if we allow for differences in taste be
practical, not aesthetic. Breuer; who was well
tween 1939 and the present, the words bizarre
aware of the uniqueness of most of the Frank
and extravagant still apply to much of the
furniture designs, said:
interior and furniture. The furniture can best
The profiles of this type of furniture give a be seen in the context of Breuer's other cutout-
line unprecedentedin our interiors: wood in plywood experiments.
slablike forms, freely designedand even per
forated in contrast to the rigid, geometric,
90 mostly straight lines of the architecture. CUTOUT-PLYWOOD FURNITURE
A contemporary critic writing in the Archi Breuer began designing cutout-plywood furni
tectural Forum found that in its use of natural ture after his first experiments with molded
materials and in and bent plywood for Isokon. The main appeal
156
of furniture made from pieces of plywood that
needed only to be cut out with a jigsaw and
then assembled was that models could be
made in a small workshop, and since the furni
ture could be easily produced, it could be sold
at a relatively low price.
Cutout plywood held a further appeal for
Breuer. As he explained:
Fig. 163. Side chair, cutout plywood, made in Fig. 164. Armchair, cutout plywood, made in 157
England, 1936. Breuer constantly strove to England, 1936. Breuer designed and exhibited
design chairs that could be made from the a very similar chair in Gropius' and his Penn
smallest number of parts, preferably without sylvania Pavilion at the 1939 New York World's
necessity for large-scale factory tooling-up. Fair.
ion at the 1939 World's Fair and the two-piece under the weight of sitter and upholstery
frame of the Bryn Mawr chair (fig. 155) were framework.
made more stable by the use of thicker side In the case of the lounge chair for Heal's
pieces and a solid seat and back, reinforced (fig. 138), an irregularly shaped box was made
by the cross-bracing of the dowels. The result to which the upholstery and arms were ap
was a trimmer more compact, and ultimately plied. Strength was thereby achieved through
more successful chair than his experimental a bulky, solid construction. The similar design
English models. And Breuer's argument for for his Frank house lounge chair (fig. 159)
the use of plywood was clinched with the reverted to the structural formula used for the
Frank dining chairs (fig. 158),where the strength Ventris seating. Like most of the cutout chairs,
of the side pieces in combination with dowels it was presented as a seat until placed
was sufficient to support the entire chair in a between — in this case, suspended between —
cantilevered construction. This combination the two side pieces, beyond which it projected
permitted a different, freer shape for the side at both ends. This construction also allowed
pieces. Where upholstery was added, as was for the use of padded arms that did not have
the case with the Ventris chairs (fig. 148), as to be separately applied, as in the Heal's chair.
well as in the similar designs for the Frank The structural solutions Breuer arrived at in
house (fig. 160), the Pennsylvania Pavilion at England in 1936 for each chair type were not,
the 1939 World's Fair (fig. 165), and Breuer's therefore, substantially changed in his later
own house, an almost unlimited number of American chairs. Unfortunately his aesthetic
crosspieces could be added to assure stability solutions similarly were little changed. Both
the visual characteristics and the structural Carola Giedion-Welcker wrote about and col
problems inherent in the designs of the chairs lected Arp's work, and it seems likely that
remained. The desired simplification of the she made Breuer aware of Arp's largely
production process resulted in an oversimpli two-dimensional wooden sculptures or reliefs,
fication of the design of the chairs. The which were executed with paper stencils.
diagrammatic or schematic nature of the de Breuer must have realized the limitations of
signs resulted in constructions that looked these designs, and, in the mid-194-Os,he aban
more like cardboard models of chairs than doned them to begin work on a new type of
actual pieces of seating furniture. All the vari cutout-plywood furniture.
ous chair parts, especially the important side
pieces, were each cut from a single piece of
plywood. (In this respect the Bryn Mawr chair INDEPENDENT PRACTICE
was the only exception.) In order to support
the chair, a relatively wide expanse of mate Shortly after the completion of the Frank
rial was necessary for the side pieces. Their house, the partnership of Gropius and Breuer
combination with seats and backs, which could broke up. Perhaps this was inevitable. Breuer
be upholstered or solid, and were only rarely had begun his career as Gropius' student. It
bent or molded, still led to designs in which was Gropius' support and encouragement that
one was always aware of the disparate parts had led to many of the most significant events
rather than the continuous whole. The aes in Breuer's professional life. It was Gropius
thetic was that of a "constructed" chair, made who encouraged Breuer to stay at the Bauhaus
up of distinctly separate elements. as a teacher; Gropius who had arranged for
Inevitably these cutout pieces were flat, many of Breuer's early commissions; Gropius'
two-dimensional. If they were bent they had move to England that made possible Breuer's
only a limited existence on another plane. No partnership with Yorke and the work for Isokon;
matter how intricate the pieces, no matter how and finally, Gropius who paved the way for
organic and complicated or simple and geo Breuer's coming to the United States. When
metrical, the effect would always be similar. they established their architectural partner
No matter what the shape, the effect was that ship in the United States, it was truly the first
of a boxlike construction. The joining or attach time the two designers— and more important,
ments between parts were always handled at the two men —stood as equals. No longer
right angles. It was with good reason that the was the relationship one of student to teacher.
chairs were always seen in photographic views Their differing personalities and their very
emphasizing profile or side elevations. different styles of designing, plus this redefined
Breuer had come to plywood furniture as relationship, made their parting predictable.
the result of Gropius' suggestion that he Breuer, at the time, was described by many
translate the aluminum chair into plywood. as an intuitive designer. His grasp of design
Breuer's excursions into designing organic or problems was quick, his response equally so.
biomorphic forms, however, while being symp Gropius was a slow, some might say ponderous
tomatic of the period, and reflecting Aalto's architect who, throughout his career, collabo
influence, nonetheless seem to have resulted rated with talented younger associates who
directly from his introduction to Surrealist art assumed much of the responsibility for design.
by Carola Giedion-Welcker, wife of Sigfried Gropius was the philosopher architect, the
Giedion, in Zurich during the early 1930s. polemicist of the modern movement, always
159
articulate on the state ot the art. In contrast, striction on domestic construction was still in
Breuer was reticent about his "philosophy" of effect. The Breuer design was exempted from
design, his view of the architectural world; his that ban, however, and from a subsequent
concern was design, problem solving. For limitation on the dollar amount to be spent on
Gropius the questions were always big ques houses built by veterans, because it was
tions; for Breuer they were of the moment, submitted to the Government as a model
seen in relation to the situation at hand. prefabricated house.
The Gellers agreed to Breuer's suggestion
GELLERHOUSE that he design furniture for the house when
he explained that he had ideas for laminated-
Breuer maintained his own practice in Cam wood furniture that he had never been able to
bridge from 1941 until 1946, at which time execute. A Cambridge firm, the Theodore
he moved his practice to New York, and his Schwamb Company, executed his chair and
home first to Wei If leet on Cape Cod, and then table designs, while Irving & Casson, also of
to New Canaan, Connecticut. Cambridge, built some of the cabinetwork.
His first independent commission to be built The hope was that the furniture might even
during the war years was a house for the tually be mass-produced.
Gellerfamily on Long Island. TheGeller house The original plans for the nine-room house
(figs. 166-69) was a landmark of Breuer's later (excluding the guest wing) called for forty
career and, with the exception of the Harnis- specially designed chairs. There were actually
macher house, was the most extensively pub three basic chair designs: a large lounge chair
lished of his buildings. It was a "binuclear" (fig. 168), a dining side chair or armchair (fig.
house, based on a design idea Breuer had 169), and a stacking side chair (fig. 171). In
been working on during the preceding years, addition there were a couch, a number of
one that would be widely imitated during the large tables (fig. 193), smaller coffee (fig. 168)
next decade. He explained it in terms of "the and bedside tables, several desks and desk-
postwar man)' who dresser units, bookcases, and other built-in
cabinetwork, including a large built-in wall
will more than ever appreciate privacy and unit that formed part of the wall between the
his intimate, complete milieu... His mecha
nized world, his job, will probably keep him kitchen and dining room (fig. 169). The furni
busy not more than three or four days a ture was designed in 1945 and constructed in
week. He will naturally want to utilize his early 1946.
free time around the house, which ought to The public areas of the house, consisting of
be a more versatile instrument. ..As to this living- and dining-room spaces separated by
design, there are two separate zones con a free-standing bookshelf unit, were both
nected by an entrance hail. One is for every simple, open rectangular rooms, as were most
day's living, eating.. .visitors.. .Theother one,
of the interior spaces. The stone fireplace wall
in a separate wing, is for concentration,
work, and sleeping and floors offered textural contrast with the
wide expanses of window and light window-
In the Geller house this two-part con framing elements. Most of the rooms were
ception of public and private areas was similar in feeling, although a certain variety of
supplemented by a guest area, adjacent interior space resulted from the sloping ceil
to but separate from the main house. ings, a consistent feature of Breuer houses of
The house was built while a wartime re the period.
160
JLLUL-I
Fig. 166. Geller house, Lawrence, Long Island, Fig. 167. Plan, Geller house, Lawrence, Long 161
1945. Breuer's first project to be built after Island, 1945. Although Breuer was certainly
the severing of his partnership with Gropius, not the first architect to conceive of a house
the Geller house was one of the most impor plan that separated public and private, or
tant and influential American houses of the day and night, areas of the house, he was
1940s. responsible for popularizing it as the "binu-
clear" house during the mid-1940s.
Fig. 168. Living room, Geller house, Lawrence, Fig. 169. Dining room, Geller house, Lawrence,
Long Island, 1945. One entire wall of the living Long Island, 1945. In addition to the specially
room was made of rough fieldstone into which designed chairs and table, Breuer provided a
was fitted the fireplace. Breuer hoped the wall unit that opened into the kitchen.
specially designed cutout-plywood furniture
would be mass-produced someday.
THE UNITED STATES,1937-67
163
////////////771 V///////////
been the case in the earlier cutout-plywood
chairs). This raised production costs and made
satisfactory aesthetic solutions problematic.
Breuerwould later observe that the best molded-
plywood designs did not use plywood for
supporting members. Charles Eames's 1946
side chair used steel supports, as did Arne
Jacobsen's 1952 stacking chair.
In his report to the MoMA competition jury
Breuer posited three requirements for a suc
cessful cutout-plywood chair:
1. Some wood-like or nature-textured
material.. .which is tough and resilient, and
which permits designs based on curving or
/v.r'*' - bending, involving no heavy initial costs for
equipment.
2.The number of connecting joints should
be reducedto the minimum,and the remaining
connectionsshould work without weakening
the members.
3. If possible, both membersand connec
tions should be resilient for greater comfort,
96 and lighter in weight and appearance
Breuer attempted to meet these requirements
first in the chairs he designed for the Geller
house. The dining chairs (fig. 169) were made
from cantilevered framing elements, two of
which were placed back to back to form the
leg and base of each side.Through this design
Breuer achieved his goal of a chair that had
no front legs, as well as one that could slide
along the floor like the earlier metal furniture.
Further, to the eye the elements appeared
"based on curving or bendingj' although they
were in fact cut out. The chairs were made of
thick plywood that could be cut and molded in
a small-scale workshop operation. The frames
were resilient and, in the case of the side
chairs, contained only those joinings neces
sary to attach the framing elements to one
another and to the seat and back. (He de
signed a lounge chair along similar lines; it
was, however, never produced.)
Breuer used a different design and con
struction for the large armchairs (fig. 168) and
Fig. 170. Patent drawing, table design for the Fig. 171. Stacking side chair, Geller house, 164
Geller house, 1945. This is the basic design for Lawrence, Long Island, 1945. The compact
the dining- and living-room tables. and economical design was one of Breuer's
best in cutout plywood. The house also con
tained examples of a larger armchair with a
similar slatted seat and back.
Fig. 172. Side chair, cutout plywood, rubber
mounts, and cane, International Competition
for Low-Cost Furniture, The Museum of Modern
Art, 1948. (Collection The Museum of Modern
Art, gift of the designer.)
the stacking side chairs (fig. 171).The leg-arm ticularly wanted the frame elements to have a
units of the former and the leg-frame ele uniform profile and not bulge out at the criti
ments of the latter were made from thick cal stress or contact points.
cutout plywood which, through its open The new solutions arrived at in the MoMA
U-shape, gave resilience to the frame. The chairs were partly the result of the research by
width of the frame, however, had to be in the United States Forests Products Laboratory,
creased in areas of greatest stress. The back, acting on Breuer's request, into the structural
with its two L-shaped supports, was equally capabilities of wood, and partly attributable
resilient. Both designs addressed the problem of to new and stronger glues and the design of a
minimum waste of material: the elements were new method of connection between the vari
cut from a board of predetermined size which ous parts of the chair.
yielded the largest number of parts possible. Several aspects of the chair's six-piece
The Geller chairs, especially the stacking construction were new. The supporting mem
chair, moved Breuer closer to an ideal solution bers were made of one-inch bakelite-glued
for a laminated-wood chair. However, largely plywood with cross-laminations of hardwood.
because of restrictions on the use of woods These additional laminations were devised to
and glues due to the war, problems devel reinforce the laminated wood in both direc
oped. After barely a year of use the screws tions. The plywood was virtually indestructi
that held together the frame parts of the large ble after receiving the bakelite treatment. The
armchairs began to loosen. The manufacturer curvilinear bends were designed to allow the
attributed this to the pronounced resilience of stresses to flow from one member to the next;
the chairs; ironically, the quality most desired angular shapes would have reduced the
had led to structural problems. And although strength of the chair.
Breuer was well aware of and had written The various parts were connected not only
about the problems of loose connections, he with screws, but with small pieces of rubber
was unable to overcome them. Further, ex of varying widths. The rubber pieces were
posed to the intense sunlight that entered cemented between the plywood elements with
through the large windows of the house, the a new type of rubber adhesive that was fixed
laminations of many of the chairs gradually by pressure and heat. The use of rubber in the
came a part. The latter problem could, however; joinings made the joints themselves resilient,
be solved by the use of higher-quality glues. thereby reducing the risk of breakage between
Despite the "bugs!' theGellerarmchairand, any two parts.
especially the stacking chair were accomplished The MoMA chair can be seen as a better-
designs, seen in the context of Breuer's at resolved version of the design first attempted
tempts to develop cutout-plywood furniture. in the Geller stacking chair. The use of the
The crucial problem that remained was how bakelite-treated wood and the rubber shock
to connect the various parts so that they would mounts allowed the chair to be made from
be both strong and highly resilient. In his more than one piece of wood on a side. Ironi
MoMA competition chairs (figs. 172-74), Breuer cally the use of the two pieces resulted in a
attempted to address the problem by completely design that was far more continuous and
redesigning the chairs. He further tried to homogeneous in appearance than had been
reduce the thickness of the various elements, the Geller chairs made of fewer pieces. The
especially the leg supports, to make the chair added strength gained from the two pieces on
97 "lighter in weight and appearance." He par each side allowed them to be thinner and
166
THE UNITED STATES,1937-67
mmfm, u.
Fig. 173. Design for MoMA Competition, 1948. Fig. 174. Design for MoMA Competition, 1948. 167
(Collection The Museum of Modern Art, gift of (Collection The Museum of Modern Art, gift of
the designer.) These chair designs were de the designer.) The drawing of "Layout of Panels
veloped with the research assistance of the Needed for 18 Chairs" demonstrates Breuer's
United States Forests Products Laboratory. concern for the most efficient use of material.
more delicate in form. The disturbing thick times. Houses provide architects with the op
ness of the sides of the Geller chairs was portunity to show their mettle on a scale and
thereby eliminated, replaced by gently rounded with a directness that sometimes get lost in
and tapered elements. large projects.
When the important cost factors were taken The point of departure for Breuer's late
into consideration, the chairs would, accord houses was the planning of the binuclear
ing to Breuer; prove economical. No expensive Geller house, along with its treatment of ma
forms or molds were required; flat plywood terial, especially the combination of large
pieces could be cut out and glued together. window walls and stone. With Breuer's in
There was minimal waste of material owing creasing use of concrete,the combination would
to the design of the parts, which used as much become one of concrete and glass.
material as possible from every board. The Typical of Breuer's handling of interiors in
use of interchangeable parts and materials in the years to come was the use of entrance-
the different chair models would further reduce ways separating the public and private areas
costs, as would the fact that the chairs could of the house. Living rooms were designed as
be shipped in parts and took little space to grand spaces, surrounded by wide expanses
store. of window. Large cabinet-units were still used
to define the otherwise continuously planned
spaces for living and dining. The large living
LATERWORK rooms were dominated by free-standing
fireplaces— a device that would appear with
During the early 1950s, the volume of work increasing frequency and in bolder and more
produced by Breuer's office began to grow sculptural forms in later houses. Furniture was
98 and the nature of the work began to change kept simple; little of it was designed by Breuer,
In 1949 an exhibition house designed by Breuer except for a few built-in pieces. Apparently
was installed in the garden of The Museum of the architect was satisfied with the commer
Modern Art (fig. 175). Accompanying the ex cial furniture then available on the market.
hibition was the publication of a monograph Designs by Eames,Saarinen, and others meant
of Breuer's career to date, written by Peter that for the first time there was well-designed
Blake. Although Breuer's stature in the archi modern furniture, in addition to tubular steel
tectural world was already considerable, these or Aalto plywood, readily available for pur
two events enhanced his prestige and expanded chase.This, combined with the increasing size
the public's knowledge of his work. During the and volume of commissions, led him largely to
following years he received an ever-increasing abandon the design of furniture except as
number of architectural commissions. As the required by clients. The only exception was his
number of requests for large commercial build continuing design of wall units, especially those
ings grew, the number of house commissions between kitchen and dining room. In some
dwindled, and the designing of new furniture later commissions these were, however,
shrank to almost nothing. Like most architec replaced by low counters.
tural firms that find large projects for corpora In 1947 Breuer built a house for himself in
tions or Government more profitable and New Canaan (figs. 178-80). It became one of
ultimately less time-consuming than private the best-known houses of the late 1940s and
houses, the Breuer office nonetheless usually was one of the first designs that made the
had at least one house project going at all Connecticut town a mecca for aficionados of
168
<h
modern architecture. The renown of the Breuer which passed by the kitchen and bathroom.
house was, however, largely eclipsed in 1949 The openness of the public rooms— achieved
when Philip Johnson built his own New through the clever use of partitions, the centrally
Canaan home, a design which decisively moved located fireplace, ahd the lack of doors be
away from the vernacularizing tendencies tween the various spaces— made the relatively
favored by Breuer and his students, toward a narrow house seem expansive. Further con
new formalism in design. tributing to the richness of the living and
Breuer's house was modest in size, eco dining areas were cypress boarding for the
nomical in its use of space and its low cost. ceiling, stone and Haitian matting for the
The dining and living areas were just within floor, white-painted plywood walls, and brick
and between the front and rear doors; two fireplace.
bedrooms were located off a long hallway The simplified rectangular plan of the 1947
Fig. 189. Terrace, Breuer house I, New Canaan, Fig. 190. Desk, wood, 1951. Designed for the 179
1947. Marcel Breuer and his wife Constance— second New Canaan Breuer house and often
they were married in 1940— sitting at the referred to as the "New Canaan Desk," the
built-in table and benches on the terrace of piece was mass-produced for several years
their first New Canaan home. by Gavina of Milan.
Fig. 191. Auditorium seating. Arts Center, Fig. 192. Breuer with Herbert Beckhard, chairs 180
Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, N.Y., and tables, Koerfer house, Switzerland,
1950-52. 1963-67.
Conclusion
182
duction is produced in relatively small quan
tities, sold for a relatively higher price, and
by reason of this higher price never creates
the great public demand which would justify
its truly low cost mass production"
Fig. 195
Fig. 196
Fig. 197
Fig. 198
Fig. 199
Fig. 193. Thonet chaises longues B1 5 and B1 5a. Fig. 197. Thonet armchair B36. 185
Fig. 194. Thonet stools B8 and B56. Fig. 198. Desk B65, illustrated with an arm
2 Fig. 195. Table B53, seen with Breuer's B34Y chair version of Breuer's B7a and E. W. Buquet's
armchair. adjustable architect's lamp.
Fig. 196. Ottoman B63, illustrated with Fig. 199. Thonet bar stool B114.
Breuer's B25 lounge chair and B9c nesting
table.
ary importance. We have no desire to present a purely it has the simplest form, furniture with no compo
formal point of view; instead, we see our mission in sition—neither beginning nor end —that can also be
creating a home that is simpler, lighter, more comfort secondary, part of a yet undetermined continuation.
able in a biological sense, and independent of exterior This principle applies particularly to closets and all
factors. cupboards in the house.
This development places the following problem in What is true of the permanently fixed cupboard is
the foreground: The necessity for the utmost economy not true of the actual furniture, i.e., chairs, beds, and
in space demands a machine for living, which must tables. These should be good, well-formed, indepen
actually be constructed like a machine, with engineer dent models, whose main characteristics are mobility,
ing developments and the latest in mechanization. lightness, and where possible, transparency.
Practically speaking: Everything is either built-in or Regarding the artificial lighting of a room the follow
permanent, every object is placed in a specific ing must be said: Out with traditional ornamental light
location — beds, tables, collapsible night tables, every ing fixtures, with complicated modern or old-fashioned
thing measured off in the smallest dimensions and chandeliers, etc.! I find the trivial and endless variation
interlocking. Maximum use of space, as in a ship's in this area petty and tiring. The light fixture interests
cabin or a train compartment. The individual life func me only insofar as it is an unavoidably necessary
tions must be intensively analyzed and taken into ac instrument and the carrier of light.
count as much as possible. The house, in other words, Two types of lighting can be clearly distinguished:
should be based on the body. spot lighting and general room lighting. For the first,
Here it must be emphasized, however, that these table or wall arms with as many joints as possible
various solutions present possible dangers, such as: should be used, with the same lamp serving as many
oppressive, imperfectly functioning, or fragile machines purposes as possible (on the desk, bed, etc.). For gen
in the daily environment; addiction to function; petty eral room lighting, the most desirable light is indirect
concern over details. . .all aesthetically unsettling, dis lighting, mounted on the walls or on low cabinets,
turbing results of ineffectual striving. A pompous flooding the ceiling and thereby the room with one
overconstruction — I 'art pour I 'art. sided indirect light. In this area, our assignment is not
Despite intensive investigation of the life functions, the design of the lighting fixture, but rather the shaping
we must achieve a few general —at least relatively of the light itself.
general — forms. There has seldom been a more misunderstood con
Basically: A few simple objects are enough, when cept than colorfulness or "joy in color" in architecture.
these are good, multiuse, and capable of variation. We Following in the steps of the modern movement came a
avoid thus the slavish pouring of our needs into count shocking brightness, a substitute for arts and crafts,
less commodities that complicate our daily lives instead which offended anyone who did not look at colors with
of simplifying them and making them easier. For exam his eyes closed, in other words, anyone who looked at
ple: An ordinary chair does not need to be adjustable color as more than a principle. I consider "white" a very
for various sizes of people. The problem, although versatile and beautiful color; at the same time it is the
initially tempting, is not significant enough to make all brightest color —there is seldom a reason to replace it
of the complications worthwhile. Or: Only in the rarest with any other color. Living things appear more intense
cases does a bed need to be folded up for lack of space. in bright monochromatic rooms, and this is important
One can design it so that it provides seating and to me. The decorations in such rooms are the tools of
lounging space during the day — which also eliminates daily life, man himself — and the best ornaments of all:
the need for extra chairs. plants. Simply stated: The home should be neither a
Another solution is to build in as few furnishings as color composition nor a spiritual self-portrait of its
possible, creating multiple-use units instead. These can architect!
be put next to one another or on top of one another, Translated by Kathleen Fluegel
depending upon their intended use and the dimensions
of the room.
Such units should be standard, so that they can be
combined. The goal must be not to produce a finished
model complete in itself, but rather to produce basic
units that can be combined and recombined at any
time. The result is furniture that is independent because
186
NOTES not attributed to a specific source are from a series
of interviews conducted by the author between
1. Although Breuer has always cited his birthdate as 1978 and 1980. Despite Breuer's account of his late
22 May, several documents from his personal files, arrival, it is possible that when he arrived the
dating from 1926 and 1929, refer to his birthdate course was not yet part of the school's curriculum.
as 21 May 1902. Marcel Breuer Collection, George It was not mentioned in the first Bauhaus Program,
Arents Research Library for Special Collections, and descriptions of it did not appear until October
Syracuse University, Box 10. (The Breuer Collection 1920, by which time Breuer was at the Bauhaus. It
is not yet cataloged; therefore references cannot seems likely, however, that Itten was teaching some
always be made to specific files.) form of the course shortly after his arrival in 1919.
2. In 1926, Breuer filed papers with the Official Cf. Franciscono, p. 174.
Provincial Rabbinate (Amtliches Landesrabbinat) in 13. Peter Blake, Marcel Breuer: Architect and Designer
Dessau declaring that he did not wish to be consid (New York: MoMA, 1949), p. 15 (hereafter as Blake).
ered Jewish. Breuer Collection, Box 10. 14. A surviving drawing for the entrance hall does not
3. Forbat also went to the Bauhaus in 1920; there he show Breuer's chairs, but more traditional furniture
taught part-time while working in Gropius' archi and an arrangement which was not used in the
tectural office. house when it was built. The drawing is published
4. Letter from Gropius to Peter Blake, 10 Jan. 1949; in Wingler, p. 239, where the date of the house is
Breuer correspondence file, Department of Archi mistakenly given as 1921.
tecture and Design, MoMA. 15. Franciscono, p. 243.
5. Walter Gropius, "Die Entwicklung moderner 16. Van Doesburg quoted in Ludwig Grote, "basic form
Industriebaukunst," Jahrbuch des deutschen and functionalism," in 50 Years Bauhaus, p. 18.
Werkbundes, 1913, translated in Tim and Char 17. Theodore M. Brown, The Work of G. Rietveld, Archi
lotte Benton with Dennis Sharp, Architecture tect (Utrecht: Bruna & Zoon, 1958), p. 31.
and Design 1890-1939 (New York: Whitney 18. In June 1922, Oskar Schlemmer reflected Cor-
Library of Design, 1975), p. 53 (hereafter cited busier's influence when he wrote: "we need living
as Benton). machines instead of cathedrals — let us turn away,
6. Letter from Fritz Mackensen to Walter Gropius, 14 therefore, from the middle ages and from the con
Oct. 1915, translated in Hans M. Wingler, The cept of craftsmanship..." Quoted in 50 Years Bau
Bauhaus (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1976), p. haus, p. 20.
22 (hereafter as Wingler). 19. 50 Years Bauhaus, p. 314.
7. Letter from Gropius to Mackensen, 19 Oct. 1915, 20. Herbert Bayer, Walter and Ise Gropius, Bauhaus
Wingler, p. 22. 1919-1928 (New York: MoMA, 1938), p. 25.
8. Gropius, "Recommendations for the Founding of 21. Letter from Lyonel Feininger to Julia Feininger,
an Educational Institution as an Artistic Counseling 5 Oct. 1922, translated in Wingler, p. 56.
Service for Industry, the Trades, and the Crafts," 22. Bauhaus 1919-1928, p. 25.
Wingler, p. 23. 23. The table is traditionally said to have received the
9. Translated in Wingler, p. 31. Parsons name because Jean-Michel Frank, with
10. Marcel Franciscono, Walter Gropius and the Crea whom many associated the design, taught at the
tion of the Bauhaus Weimar (Urbana: University of Parsons school in Paris.
Illinois Press, 1971), pp. 88 ff. (hereafter as 24. Bulletin de L'Effort Moderne, no. 9 (Nov. 1924), n.p.
Franciscono). A record of the trip exists in a letter written by
11. Quoted in Hans Eckstein, "purpose and goal of Breuer to his colleague Erich Dieckmann, published
workshop education at the bauhaus," in 50 Years in Karl Heinz Huter, Das Bauhaus in Weimar (Berlin:
Bauhaus (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1969), p. Akademie Verlag, 1976), pp. 276-77.
75. The use of only lowercase letters in publications 25. From the manuscript of the English translation of
written by Bauhausler (Bauhaus students or teach Ise Gropius' diary; entry for 27 Nov. 1926.
ers) was consistent with the new style of typogra 26. A similiar association with the bicycle was made by
phy (which also included the strict use of sanserif Le Corbusier at precisely the same time when he
lettering) championed by Herbert Bayer and adopted wrote of the staircase in his 1925 Pavilion de I Esprit
by the Bauhaus beginning in 1925. Nouveau: "We have made a staircase like a bicycle
12. All direct or indirect quotations of Breuer that are frame." From Le Corbusier, Almanach d' Architecture
187
Moderne (Paris: Les Editions G. Cres et Cie, 1925), granted for designs that had been previously pub
p. 145, cited in Sigfried Giedion, Mechanization lished, but unlike patent applications, they entailed
Takes Command (New York: Norton, 1969), p. 492. no elaborate examination of the validity of an
27. From "metallmobel," printed in Werner Graff, ed., application. A design registration could be chal
Innenraume (Stuttgart: Fr. Wedekind, 1928), p. 134, lenged only by an infringement action. Quotations
and translated in Benton, p. 227. At least one from Emerson Stringham, ed., Patents and Geb-
Bauhausler, Andrew Weininger; recalls seeing Breuer's rauchsmuster in International Law (Madison, Wis.:
first designs in tubular aluminum. Pacot Publications, 1935), pp. 195-221.
28. Although the newspaper has not been traced, 36. Ise Gropius diary, entry for 13 Feb. 1926.
Breuer clearly recalls its publication; it was the 37. Ise Gropius diary, entry for 24 Mar. 1927.
reason he was not allowed to patent the design, 38. The use of the letter B to designate Breuer furniture
since German patent law proscribes the patenting did indeed refer to the designer's name but had its
of a design that has previously been published. origins in the Thonet company's labeling system,
29. Translated in Benton, p. 226. initiated in 1925-26, which used letters to designate
30. The naming of the chair was the idea of Dino furniture types. A simple bentwood side chair was
Gavina of Milan, who began reproducing the Breuer model A14, an armchair, B14. Standard-Mobel's
designs in 1960. use of a similar designation must have represented
31 . Mechanization Takes Command, p. 493. The exten a conscious reference to the famous maker of
sive use of horsehair was clearly recalled by several bentwood furniture.
Bauhausler 39. A similar leg profile was used in a 1927 round table
32. Published in Bauhaus Journal 1926, no. 1, p. 3, and designed by Gustav Ffassenpflug, a Bauhaus stu
translated in Wingler, p. 424. dent who studied with and later worked as an
33. The Kandinsky bedroom furniture was never assistant to Breuer.The design was later sold by the
photographed, and until her death in 1980, was Swiss design store Wohnbedarf, although the firm
still used by Nina Kandinsky in her Paris apart printed the table without a design credit. It was
ment. The bed, stools, and night table were later used, in a slightly modified form, as a dining
virtually all made from round pieces of wood. table by Walter and Ise Gropius in their Lincoln,
34. Many of the rooms in the Gropius house were fitted Mass., home, where it still remains. See Bauhaus
with interesting built-in cabinetwork which was not 1919-1928, p. 127.
well photographed, but which was illustrated in 40. Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture (New
Walter Gropius, Bauhausbauten Dessau (Bauhaus York: Praeger, 1972), pp. 114-15 (hereafter as
book no. 12) (Munich: Albert Langen Verlag, 1930), Le Corbusier).
the best source for illustrations of Bauhaus buildings. 41. According to correspondence in the Mies van der
35. German design registration 96,4585, 13 Sept. 1926 Rohe Archive, MoMA, Breuer had expressed inter
and 25 Mar, 1927, also filed as a patent in France, est in designing one of the houses. After his offer
no. 640,760, 12 Sept. 1927. Breuer registered the was rejected, Gropius urged his participation through
design since he was unable to patent the new the design of several interiors.
chairs because of their publication in 1925. A design 42. He wrote about this in his essay in Innenraume, p.
registration was an alternative form of protection 133; this section of the essay was omitted from the
that covered 'models of utility," offered initial pro translation in Benton cited above.
tection of three years, as opposed to fifteen in a 43. Advertisement printed in Bauhaus Journal 1928, no.
patent, and included designs where "no real tech 1, and translated in Wingler, p. 452.
nical effect was required .. .any substantially new 44. This and the three following extracts are from
useful effect being sufficient." It therefore measured Breuer's "Metallmobel und moderne raumlichkeit,"
novelty only in terms of utility. An ancillary form of Das Neue Frankfurt vol. 2, no. 1 (1928), pp.
protection was available in an artistic copyright, 11-12, translated in 50 Years Bauhaus, p. 109.
which covered only the "artistic or aesthetic effect 45. Muche, "Fine Art and Industrial Form," from the
. . . [of ] industrial models or designs." The two forms first issue of the Bauhaus Journal 1926, translated
of protection could be used to cover a single design. in Benton, p. 152.
(When Mart Stam designed his cantilevered chair 46. Le Corbusier, p. 221.
[see below, p. 70], he applied for an artistic copy 47. From "metallmobel," in Benton, p. 226.
right.) Design registrations technically could not be 48. Le Corbusier, p. 222.
49. This and the two following extracts are from John 65. See Appendix 2.
Gloag,"Wood or Metal?" The Studio, vol. 97 (1929), 66. Ibid.
67. "L'Union des Artistes Modernes au Pavilion de
pp. 49-50.
50. Maurice Dufrene, "A Survey of Modern Tendencies Marsan," Art et Industrie (July 1930), vol. 6, no. 7, p.
in Decorative Art," The Studio Yearbook of Decora 26, translated on p. 46.
tive Art (London: Studio, 1931), pp. 2-4. 68. Journal des Debats (10 June 1930), cited in
51.Aldous Huxley, "Notes on Decoration," Creative Bauhaus 1919-1928, p. 94.
Art, no. 4 (Oct. 1930), p. 242. 69. See Appendix 2.
52. "metallmobel," in Benton, p. 226. 70. Ibid.
"
9 53. The meeting was described in Heinz Rasch, Aus 71 . Lecture, "Where Do We Stand reprinted in Blake,
den zwanziger Jahren," Werk und Zeit, vol. 9, no. 11 p. 119.
(Nov. 1960), pp. 1-3. In attendance were Stam, 72. From the English patent (416,758) "Spring Seat and
Mies, Rasch, and Le Corbusier. Reclining Chair," filed 20 Nov. 1933; adapted from
54. Information in this section is based on the personal the original German patent of 22 Nov. 1932.
files of Anton Lorenz, now in the possession of his 73. From "die ferdernde alummiumstuhle von marcel
former business partner Peter Fletcher of Boynton breuer, budapest," and "Schweizer Aluminium
Beach, Florida, and on material in the Breuer Moebel," unpublished multipage descriptions of the
Collection. aluminum furniture, Breuer Collection, Box 10.
55. All quotations in this paragraph are from a 74. English patent 416,758.
transcript of the Appeals Court decision (Appeal 75. Ibid.
of the decision of the 10th Civil Senate of the 76. Letter 12 Dec. 1934, Breuer to L. & C. Arnold,
Supreme Court at Berlin, 22 Apr. 1931, proclaimed Arnold File, Box 10, Breuer Collection.
on 27 Feb. 1932, damages set on 1 June 1932), 77. In 1942 Breuer is known to have worked on alumi
Breuer Collection. num furniture once again, but no photographs
56. In a subsequent court suit initiated by the Mauser survive. In a description for Jack Pritchard, he wrote:
company, manufacturers of tubular-steel furniture, "Maintaining the idea of the split bar, together
aga i nst Mies a nd Lorenz, Ma user attem pted to prove with the idea of springing type resilient supports, I
that a designer named StOttgen had designed the tried to make improvements: first, in the appear
first tubular-steel cantilevered chair in 1925. The ance of the furniture: secondly, in the elimination of
claim was rejected in the original suit and twice on the front legs of the chair... and thirdly, in the
appeal, the last time in 1940, after Lorenz had left simplification of the manufacturing process. I have
Nazi Germany. Lorenz and his associates felt that made one model chair. The system works, and I am
Stuttgen's story was a fabrication, sinde no proof trying to organize the necessary development work
could be offered and the testimony was entirely with the aluminium industry." (Letter 13 Sept. 1946,
unconvincing. (Lorenz papers.) Pritchard Archive, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.)
57. This included Lorenz' freely plagiarizing Breuer's 78. Undated manuscript, "Draft (of) History of the
early tubular-steel designs, even those which were Isokon Furniture Company," Pritchard Archive.
registered, for his new DESTAcompany, which man 79. Memorandum written by Pritchard, Pritchard
ufactured Breuer's B9, B12, B22, B23, B27, and B14. Archive.
1 58. When the design was reproduced beginning in the 80. "Draft History...; Pritchard Archive.
1960s, Breuer shortened the arms, which he, and 81. Memorandum, Pritchard Archive.
others, found somewhat ungainly. 82. English patent, "Improvements in Chairs" (478,138),
59. Ise Gropius diary, entry for 27 Nov. 1926. filed 10 July 1936.
60. These conflicts were noted by Ise Gropius in her 83. English patent, "Improvements in Chairs, Tables,
diary entry for 16 Dec. 1926, and independently Stools, and like pieces of Furniture" (479,529), filed
recalled by Andrew Weininger. 12 Aug. 1936.
61 . Ise Gropius diary, entry for 6 Apr. 1927. 84. The English distributors of Aalto furniture, Finmar
Ltd, found the Breuer chair all too similar to Aalto's
62. Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Moholy-Nagy: Experiment in
Totality (Cambridge, Mass: M.I.T. Press, 1969), p. designs: in July 1936 they accused Breuer of infringing
on Aalto's patent. Breuer replied that he could not
46.
"see any similarity between this design [Aaltos]
63. Ise Gropius diary, 21 May 1927.
and my own ... I do not see any reason for stopping
64. Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, p. 46.
the manufacture of my design." (Pritchard Archive.)
Negotiations between Pritchard (Breuer's represen
tative for plywood furniture) and Artek (the Finnish
manufacturer of Aalto furniture) ensued, and even
tually involved Moholy-Nagy and Morton Shand.
By June 1937, Pritchard, on advice of counsel,
agreed to a licensing agreement that would recog
nize the Aalto design but would not require Breuer
to pay any substantial royalty. Both sides agreed to
"keep off the designs of the other." (Pritchard
Archive.) The agreement, however, was never
signed after Pritchard found an illustration of the
Aalto chair published before the date of the English
patent.
85. "A Remodelled Interior at Clifton," Architectural
Review, vol. 13, no. 79 (Mar. 1936), p. 140.
86. Marcel Breuer, A House at Bristol," Design for
Today, vol. 3 (Dec. 1935), p. 459.
87. Ibid.
88. The decision was made by a committee of students,
alumnae, and the school's Director of Halls.
89. "House in Pittsburgh, Pa.," Architectural Forum,
vol. 74 (Mar. 1941), p. 160.
90. James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford, Design of
Modern Interiors (New York: Architectural Book
Publishing Co., 1942), p. 116.
91 . "House in Pittsburgh, Pa.J p. 160.
92. Ford and Ford, p. 116.
93. "Pro|ect for a Workers House," California Arts &
Architecture (Dec. 1943), p. 24.
94. Much of the detailed information in this section
comes from "The Resilient Chair," an unpublished
booklet handed in with Breuer's competition entry
as a report on the research project.
95. Letter from Breuer to Pritchard, 13 Sept. 1946,
Pritchard Archive.
96. "The Resilient Chair," p. 9.
97. Ibid.
98. In 1957, Marcel Breuer and Associates was formed
and later became a partnership between Breuer,
Herbert Beckhard, Murray Emslie, Robert F Gatje,
and Hamilton P Smith. The firm continues in exist
ence today.
99. "The Resilient Chair," pp. 22-23.
Benton, Tim and Charlotte, with Sharp, Dennis. Archi
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