BREUER

In 1956, Time magazine called him one of the "form-givers of the 20thcentury": with his invention of steel-tube furniture, Marcel Breuer(1902-1981) has made his mark in the history of design at the tender ageof 23. He started his architectural career as one of the Bauhaus's mostinfluential architects with the 1932 Harnischmacher House. Even Breuer'searliest work was marked by the search for a symbiosis between local andglobal, big and small, smooth and rough. His sparse use of materialsemphasized the balance among textures, colors, and shapes. In 1943, heconceived the "binuclear" house concept—the splitting of living andsleeping areas into separate wings—which he first applied to theGeller House I (1944-1946), and which would attain great popularity. Afterdesigning the UNESCO headquarters in Paris (1953-1958), reinforcedconcrete, with its formal plasticity und structural elasticity, continuedto give monumental character to buildings such as the Abbey and Campus ofSt. John's University in Minnesota (1953-1961), the IBM Research Center inFrance (1960-1962), and the Whitney Museum of American Art (1963-1966) inNew York City. With his keen sense of proportion, shape, and material,Breuer is one of the most important Modernists and is still very muchcentral in the discussion of contemporary architecture.