Marcel Breuer

The steel pipe artist
Marcel Breuer, born in Austria-Hungary in 1902, was a well-known designer and architect with Hungarian Jewish roots. He became particularly famous for his invention of modern steel tube furniture. He began to design and manufacture avant-garde wood furniture at a young age of only 22 years. His endeavors always foresee that works should be composed of as many parts as possible, which exhibited only very slight variations. The joining together of several parts was by no means hidden, Breuer emphasized this addition in his works. Clearly visible, it is also the Wassily chair from the 1960s: The screw connections are visible and conscious part of the whole product. Alongside the design and manufacturing of furniture, Breuer focused on house designs of various kinds. He designed simple houses, stately mansions, public buildings and even a whole winter sports resort in the French Alps. He also created the Harvard University's faculty of architecture.

From Germany to America

In 1920, Marcel Breuer began a carpentry teaching in the furniture workshops of the Bauhaus Weimar. Painting also occupied him at this time. Four years later, he passed his journeyman's examination and went to Paris for several months to conduct architectural studies. In 1925 he received a job as a young master and head in Dessau in the furniture workshop at the Bauhaus. In contrast to Weimar, Dessau stood behind the factual and industrial design of Breuer and designed many of his buildings in Breuer's style. In a company founded by him and the Hungarian architect, he initially built his furniture before the production rights and rights to the furniture designs of Thonet were taken over in 1929. The company was closed down the year before. Marcel opened an architectural office in Berlin, but he was still denied joining the Bund Deutscher Architekten (BDA). It was not until 1931 that Walter Gropius helped him. With the capture of the Nazis in Germany, Breuer saw himself forced to flee. He came to England via Hungary and finally emigrated to the States in 1937. In Havard at the Graduate School of Design, he became a lecturer. Walter Gropius collaborated with Breuer on the development of the architecture faculty for the university. Breuer also opened his own architecture office in the states and continued his teaching activities in Harvard until 1946. Together with Pier L. Nervi and Bernard Zehrfuss, he received the order for the UNESCO building, Paris, in 1952. At 64, Marcel was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science. In 1981 he died in New York.

In our shop you will find a large selection of the steel tube furniture designed by Marcel Breuer, produced and sold by the manufacturer Thonet.