Marcel Breuer (1902 - 81)

Marcel Breuer was born in Hungary and enjoyed an influential career at the very forefront of modern design and architecture. His greatest influence came perhaps in the early part of his career with the Bauhaus movement where he created his distinctive tubular steel furniture. Classics include his modern version of the 'club' armchair in tubular steel and black leather and the B32 Cantilever chair, renamed in 1960 as the "Cesca" after his daughter Francesca

Breuer spent some time working in an architect office in Vienna before studying at the Bauhaus in Weimar between 1920 and 1924 under Walter Gropius.

After graduating he became the head of the furniture workshop at the Bauhaus. Breuer started his own architect office in Berlin, but left Germany 1931 for England. There he worked first as an architect and later became the Controller of Design at Isokon.

He emigrated to the United States of America in 1937 to work as an associate professor at the School of Design at Harvard University. During that time he shared also an architectural practice with Walter Gropius.

Differences with Gropius brought an end to their long-standing partnership. 1941 saw Breuer start his own design firm in New York, Breuer and Associates, returning to his earlier use of wood for much of his design work, rather than the new materials with which he had been so closely associated.