WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.659 Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining 00:00:01.659 --> 00:00:05.240 us on today's Deep Dive. We are really thrilled 00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:06.960 to have you with us. Yeah, so glad you could 00:00:06.960 --> 00:00:10.119 tune in. Today, we are looking at a stack of 00:00:10.119 --> 00:00:13.199 profoundly fascinating notes, primarily drawing 00:00:13.199 --> 00:00:15.759 from a comprehensive Wikipedia article about 00:00:15.759 --> 00:00:19.120 a man who fundamentally reshaped the world we 00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:21.179 live in. And I mean that quite literally. Oh, 00:00:21.199 --> 00:00:23.780 absolutely. We are talking about Marcel Breuer. 00:00:24.109 --> 00:00:27.730 a Hungarian -American visionary. This is a designer 00:00:27.730 --> 00:00:29.870 and architect who didn't just change the chairs 00:00:29.870 --> 00:00:33.189 we sit in, he completely altered the city's skylines 00:00:33.189 --> 00:00:36.210 we look up at every single day. It is quite a 00:00:36.210 --> 00:00:38.630 legacy. I mean, we are looking at a career that 00:00:38.630 --> 00:00:41.450 spans decades and mediums, touching everything 00:00:41.450 --> 00:00:44.329 from the quiet intimacy of a residential living 00:00:44.329 --> 00:00:47.310 room to the imposing scale of government headquarters. 00:00:47.689 --> 00:00:49.950 And our mission for this deep dive is to trace 00:00:49.950 --> 00:00:52.899 that sweeping evolution. We want to follow Breuer's 00:00:52.899 --> 00:00:55.079 journey from being a young, radical student shaping 00:00:55.079 --> 00:00:57.579 wood and steel in Germany, all the way to becoming 00:00:57.579 --> 00:01:00.340 a master of monumental heavy concrete in America. 00:01:00.960 --> 00:01:03.179 Okay, let's unpack this. Where does a story like 00:01:03.179 --> 00:01:05.519 this actually begin? It begins in a time and 00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:08.260 place fraught with complexity. Marcel Breuer, 00:01:08.359 --> 00:01:11.219 commonly known to his friends as Lashko. Lashko. 00:01:11.379 --> 00:01:13.920 Yeah, which is a diminutive of his middle name, 00:01:14.079 --> 00:01:18.180 Lajos. He was born in 1902 in Pex, Hungary. You 00:01:18.180 --> 00:01:19.700 know, that was part of the Austro -Hungarian 00:01:19.700 --> 00:01:21.920 Empire. Right. And he was born into a Jewish 00:01:21.920 --> 00:01:24.459 family, and it is crucial to understand the historical 00:01:24.459 --> 00:01:27.700 reality he was navigating as a young man. The 00:01:27.700 --> 00:01:30.359 rising tide of anti -Semitism in Germany was 00:01:30.359 --> 00:01:33.769 a stark... inescapable force in his life. Wow. 00:01:34.150 --> 00:01:36.469 In fact, it was so severe that he was actually 00:01:36.469 --> 00:01:38.689 forced to renounce his faith simply to marry 00:01:38.689 --> 00:01:41.890 Marta Earps. That is a really sobering reality 00:01:41.890 --> 00:01:45.290 to face so early in life. It puts his later search 00:01:45.290 --> 00:01:47.969 for new rational ways of living into a lot of 00:01:47.969 --> 00:01:50.629 perspective. So he leaves his workplace at the 00:01:50.629 --> 00:01:53.450 age of 18 in search of artistic training. Where 00:01:53.450 --> 00:01:55.689 does a teenager go to find direction in post 00:01:55.689 --> 00:01:58.599 -World War I Europe? Initially, he spends a very 00:01:58.599 --> 00:02:00.799 short period at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, 00:02:00.920 --> 00:02:03.200 but he quickly pivots. He heads to a brand new 00:02:03.200 --> 00:02:05.959 radical arts and crafts school in Weimar, Germany. 00:02:06.260 --> 00:02:09.340 A Bauhaus. Exactly, the Bauhaus. And remarkably, 00:02:09.719 --> 00:02:12.240 he was one of their very first and youngest students. 00:02:12.620 --> 00:02:15.159 The Bauhaus is such a legendary crucible for 00:02:15.159 --> 00:02:18.080 modern design. Did he stand out among the older 00:02:18.080 --> 00:02:21.120 students? He absolutely did. Specifically to 00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:24.539 the school's founder, Walter Gropius. Gropius 00:02:24.539 --> 00:02:27.139 was 19 years older than Brewer, but he immediately 00:02:27.139 --> 00:02:29.860 recognized this teenager's significant talent. 00:02:30.120 --> 00:02:32.719 He didn't just enroll him, he quickly put Brewer 00:02:32.719 --> 00:02:35.240 in charge of the Bauhaus carpentry shop. A teenager 00:02:35.240 --> 00:02:37.879 running the shop. Yeah. Gropius became a lifelong 00:02:37.879 --> 00:02:40.800 mentor to him, initiating a complex dynamic that 00:02:40.800 --> 00:02:43.400 would define much of Brewer's early career. It's 00:02:43.400 --> 00:02:47.000 staggering to think about. And by 1925, the school 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:50.110 moves to Dessau. Breuer takes a brief trip to 00:02:50.110 --> 00:02:52.830 Paris, but then returns to the Bauhaus not as 00:02:52.830 --> 00:02:55.210 a student, but as a master. Right. He starts 00:02:55.210 --> 00:02:56.750 teaching in their newly established architecture 00:02:56.750 --> 00:02:59.789 department alongside absolute legends like Joseph 00:02:59.789 --> 00:03:02.889 Albers, Wassily Kandinsky, and Paul Klee. But 00:03:02.889 --> 00:03:04.689 during this period, he has a design breakthrough 00:03:04.689 --> 00:03:07.990 that feels almost too perfectly simple. Can you 00:03:07.990 --> 00:03:10.090 walk us through the bicycle epiphany? Gladly. 00:03:10.469 --> 00:03:13.810 It is a brilliant leap of logic. Breuer was riding 00:03:13.810 --> 00:03:16.009 his bicycle and just looked down at the handlebars. 00:03:16.669 --> 00:03:19.289 He realized that the lightweight, mass -producible, 00:03:19.389 --> 00:03:22.810 exceptionally strong tubular steel used for bicycles 00:03:22.810 --> 00:03:25.669 could be applied to domestic furniture. Wait, 00:03:25.729 --> 00:03:28.150 how does one go from looking at a bicycle to 00:03:28.150 --> 00:03:30.330 building a living room chair? That seems like 00:03:30.330 --> 00:03:33.710 a huge jump. What's fascinating here is how Breuer 00:03:33.710 --> 00:03:36.189 was adapting influences from Dutch designers 00:03:36.189 --> 00:03:38.729 like Gerrit Rietveld and Theo van Doesburg. Ah, 00:03:38.729 --> 00:03:41.800 okay. Their work was highly geometric and elemental. 00:03:42.580 --> 00:03:46.340 Breuer took those rigid geometric ideas and translated 00:03:46.340 --> 00:03:49.000 them into this entirely new industrial material. 00:03:49.300 --> 00:03:51.780 He figured out how to bend the continuous steel 00:03:51.780 --> 00:03:54.099 tubes without them snapping or crimping, creating 00:03:54.099 --> 00:03:56.360 a completely new vocabulary for interior design. 00:03:56.680 --> 00:03:59.479 It was all about lightness, rationality, and 00:03:59.479 --> 00:04:01.919 a clear separation of parts. Before we move on 00:04:01.919 --> 00:04:03.340 from the furniture, I have to ask about the most 00:04:03.340 --> 00:04:05.120 famous result of that tubular steel invention, 00:04:05.300 --> 00:04:07.319 because our source text points out a widespread 00:04:07.319 --> 00:04:09.639 historical misconception. Oh, the wassily chair. 00:04:09.860 --> 00:04:12.159 Exactly. Anyone who knows mid -century design 00:04:12.159 --> 00:04:15.520 knows the famous wassily chair, that sleek leather 00:04:15.520 --> 00:04:19.339 and tubular steel armchair. The popular belief 00:04:19.339 --> 00:04:21.639 has always been that Breuer designed it specifically 00:04:21.639 --> 00:04:24.939 for his friend, the painter Wassily Kandinsky. 00:04:25.519 --> 00:04:27.579 Is there any truth to that? It is a wonderful 00:04:27.579 --> 00:04:30.939 story, but entirely untrue. The reality is that 00:04:30.939 --> 00:04:33.160 Breuer designed the chair as part of his own 00:04:33.160 --> 00:04:36.120 explorations into tubular steel. Kandinsky simply 00:04:36.120 --> 00:04:38.839 saw the finished prototype in Breuer's studio, 00:04:39.079 --> 00:04:41.899 admired it greatly, and so Breuer made an additional 00:04:41.899 --> 00:04:44.360 copy specifically for Kandinsky to use in his 00:04:44.360 --> 00:04:46.870 home. So where did the name come from? The name 00:04:46.870 --> 00:04:49.110 Wassily wasn't attached to it until decades later. 00:04:49.250 --> 00:04:51.829 When the chair was re -released in the 1960s, 00:04:51.829 --> 00:04:54.009 an Italian manufacturer learned the anecdote 00:04:54.009 --> 00:04:56.170 about Kandinsky receiving one of the earliest 00:04:56.170 --> 00:04:58.850 units. They essentially used the name Wassily 00:04:58.850 --> 00:05:01.149 as a brilliant piece of marketing spin to sell 00:05:01.149 --> 00:05:04.110 more chairs. A 1960s marketing campaign completely 00:05:04.110 --> 00:05:07.189 rewriting design history. That is fascinating. 00:05:07.430 --> 00:05:10.470 So throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s, 00:05:10.490 --> 00:05:12.610 Breuer's essentially living off these furniture 00:05:12.610 --> 00:05:14.860 design fees. Because architectural commissions 00:05:14.860 --> 00:05:17.199 are scarce. Right. There just wasn't a lot of 00:05:17.199 --> 00:05:19.759 building happening. He gets some work, like designing 00:05:19.759 --> 00:05:22.779 interiors at the 1927 Weissenhof estate assigned 00:05:22.779 --> 00:05:25.819 him by Gropius. But eventually, the political 00:05:25.819 --> 00:05:28.199 situation in Europe makes staying impossible. 00:05:28.579 --> 00:05:32.199 Where does he go next? By 1935, at the suggestion 00:05:32.199 --> 00:05:35.519 of his mentor Gropius, Brewer relocates to London. 00:05:36.170 --> 00:05:39.550 This is a brief but pivotal move. In London, 00:05:39.649 --> 00:05:42.110 he is employed by Jack Pritchard at the Isocon 00:05:42.110 --> 00:05:44.310 Company, which was one of the earliest champions 00:05:44.310 --> 00:05:47.610 of modern design in the UK. Here, Brewer starts 00:05:47.610 --> 00:05:50.509 experimenting with a new material bent and formed 00:05:50.509 --> 00:05:53.509 plywood. He was heavily inspired by the Finnish 00:05:53.509 --> 00:05:56.790 architect Alvar Aalto. This experimentation results 00:05:56.790 --> 00:05:59.610 in Brewer's famous long chair. He even works 00:05:59.610 --> 00:06:01.930 with the English modernist FRS York, designing 00:06:01.930 --> 00:06:03.910 several houses. But he doesn't stay in London 00:06:03.910 --> 00:06:06.420 forever. When does he finally cross the Atlantic? 00:06:06.680 --> 00:06:10.019 That happens in 1937. Gropius accepts an appointment 00:06:10.019 --> 00:06:12.060 as the chairman of Harvard's Graduate School 00:06:12.060 --> 00:06:14.879 of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And once 00:06:14.879 --> 00:06:17.319 again, Brewer follows his mentor. Right. They 00:06:17.319 --> 00:06:19.540 form an architectural partnership that essentially 00:06:19.540 --> 00:06:22.000 establishes the American way of designing modern 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:25.120 houses. Teaching at Harvard during that wartime 00:06:25.120 --> 00:06:27.620 era must have put them in contact with a new 00:06:27.620 --> 00:06:30.660 generation of talent. Did any of their students 00:06:30.660 --> 00:06:33.279 go on to do anything notable? To say the least. 00:06:33.629 --> 00:06:35.490 They were shaping the minds of architects who 00:06:35.490 --> 00:06:37.930 would literally build the 20th century. Oh, wow. 00:06:38.110 --> 00:06:40.310 The students included I .M. Pei, Philip Johnson, 00:06:40.629 --> 00:06:43.709 Paul Rudolph and Elliot Noyes. They were establishing 00:06:43.709 --> 00:06:46.589 a dynasty of modernism. But partnerships, especially 00:06:46.589 --> 00:06:49.329 those with a strong father figure dynamic like 00:06:49.329 --> 00:06:52.930 Gropius and Brewer, often hit a wall. Our source 00:06:52.930 --> 00:06:56.269 notes they split in 1941. What happened? The 00:06:56.269 --> 00:06:59.110 catalyst was reportedly a very minor issue. But 00:06:59.110 --> 00:07:01.149 if we look at the deeper psychological context, 00:07:01.269 --> 00:07:03.740 it makes complete sense. Breuer was approaching 00:07:03.740 --> 00:07:06.399 40. He was an established genius in his own right. 00:07:06.500 --> 00:07:08.720 Sure. There's a great lesson here about creative 00:07:08.720 --> 00:07:12.600 evolution. Sometimes the very mentor who unlocks 00:07:12.600 --> 00:07:14.879 your potential is the same person you eventually 00:07:14.879 --> 00:07:16.699 have to leave behind to find your own distinct 00:07:16.699 --> 00:07:19.600 voice. He needed to get out from under the dominant 00:07:19.600 --> 00:07:22.480 shadow of Gropius to truly cement his own legacy. 00:07:22.779 --> 00:07:25.060 Here's where it gets really interesting. Because 00:07:25.060 --> 00:07:27.699 breaking away from Gropius unlocks something 00:07:27.699 --> 00:07:32.069 profound in Breuer. By 1946, he moves to New 00:07:32.069 --> 00:07:34.930 York City to establish his solo practice, and 00:07:34.930 --> 00:07:37.470 it is during this solo era that he radically 00:07:37.470 --> 00:07:40.589 redefines the American home. Tell me about the 00:07:40.589 --> 00:07:44.069 1945 Geller House AI. This introduces a concept 00:07:44.069 --> 00:07:46.779 that changed everything. The Geller House I introduce 00:07:46.779 --> 00:07:48.839 is what Breuer called the binuclear concept. 00:07:49.199 --> 00:07:52.180 It is a masterclass in domestic logic. Binuclear. 00:07:52.319 --> 00:07:55.399 Yes. Before this, American homes were often quite 00:07:55.399 --> 00:07:57.800 compartmentalized, like a series of closed boxes 00:07:57.800 --> 00:08:01.319 or conversely, just chaotic open spaces. Breuer 00:08:01.319 --> 00:08:03.879 conceptually split the house into two distinct 00:08:03.879 --> 00:08:06.939 functional wings. One wing was dedicated to the 00:08:06.939 --> 00:08:08.639 noisy activities, the living room, the dining 00:08:08.639 --> 00:08:10.680 room, the kitchen. The other wing was strictly 00:08:10.680 --> 00:08:13.019 for quiet spaces, meaning the bedrooms. These 00:08:13.019 --> 00:08:15.180 two separate nuclei were then connected by an 00:08:15.209 --> 00:08:17.769 That really ties back to the core philosophy 00:08:17.769 --> 00:08:19.870 we saw in the tubular chair, doesn't it? That 00:08:19.870 --> 00:08:22.529 rationality, the logical separation of parts. 00:08:22.689 --> 00:08:25.550 I want you, the listener, to just pause and think 00:08:25.550 --> 00:08:28.430 about the layout of your own home right now or 00:08:28.430 --> 00:08:31.459 homes you've lived in. That distinct separation 00:08:31.459 --> 00:08:34.840 of the noisy living spaces from the quiet sleeping 00:08:34.840 --> 00:08:37.480 areas, a concept so many of us take entirely 00:08:37.480 --> 00:08:40.259 for granted today, that is a direct line back 00:08:40.259 --> 00:08:43.059 to Marcel Breuer's modernist innovations. He 00:08:43.059 --> 00:08:45.779 also popularized a very specific type of roof 00:08:45.779 --> 00:08:48.120 during this period, right? Yes, the butterfly 00:08:48.120 --> 00:08:50.690 roof. Instead of a traditional peaked roof that 00:08:50.690 --> 00:08:53.309 sheds water outward, a butterfly roof features 00:08:53.309 --> 00:08:56.309 two opposing surfaces that slope inward toward 00:08:56.309 --> 00:08:58.789 the middle, draining centrally. Which creates 00:08:58.789 --> 00:09:01.250 that V shape. Exactly. It creates a striking 00:09:01.250 --> 00:09:03.850 angular silhouette against the sky and became 00:09:03.850 --> 00:09:06.250 a defining feature of the popular modernist style 00:09:06.250 --> 00:09:08.629 vocabulary. His residential work really captured 00:09:08.629 --> 00:09:10.870 the public's imagination. Our notes highlight 00:09:10.870 --> 00:09:13.590 a 1949 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art 00:09:13.590 --> 00:09:15.809 in New York. That sounds like an absolute spectacle. 00:09:16.269 --> 00:09:19.330 It was a true cultural event. MoMA actually set 00:09:19.330 --> 00:09:21.669 up a demonstration house in their garden designed 00:09:21.669 --> 00:09:24.370 by Brewer to show the public what modern living 00:09:24.370 --> 00:09:27.669 could look like. The public buzz was unprecedented. 00:09:28.090 --> 00:09:30.009 I can imagine. People were lining up to see it. 00:09:30.169 --> 00:09:32.850 It was so beloved that when the exhibition ended, 00:09:33.029 --> 00:09:35.210 the house in the garden wasn't simply demolished. 00:09:35.250 --> 00:09:38.009 It was carefully dismantled, loaded onto a barge 00:09:38.009 --> 00:09:40.490 and floated up the Hudson River to be reassembled 00:09:40.490 --> 00:09:42.889 on the Rockefeller family property in Pocantico 00:09:42.889 --> 00:09:46.139 Hills. Just picture. A fully built modernist 00:09:46.139 --> 00:09:48.539 house floating up the Hudson River. What a visual. 00:09:48.700 --> 00:09:51.360 So he is dominating the residential scene throughout 00:09:51.360 --> 00:09:54.340 the 40s. But the 1950s mark a sweeping shift 00:09:54.340 --> 00:09:57.100 in his career. How does he go from these relatively 00:09:57.100 --> 00:10:00.460 light residential homes to the heavy institutional 00:10:00.460 --> 00:10:03.720 structures he is known for later? It is a deliberate 00:10:03.720 --> 00:10:06.700 evolution in scale and material. He transitions 00:10:06.700 --> 00:10:09.240 away from wood and steel and adopts concrete 00:10:09.240 --> 00:10:11.840 as his primary language. This turning point is 00:10:11.840 --> 00:10:14.360 marked by two vital commissions, the Master Plan 00:10:14.360 --> 00:10:16.179 and Church at St. John's Abbey in Minnesota, 00:10:16.399 --> 00:10:19.259 begun in 1954, and the UNESCO headquarters in 00:10:19.259 --> 00:10:22.000 Paris, finished in 1955. There is an anecdote 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:24.139 in our sources about the St. John's Abbey commission 00:10:24.139 --> 00:10:27.379 that feels deeply satisfying, especially considering 00:10:27.379 --> 00:10:30.360 his history with Gropius. Didn't they cross paths 00:10:30.360 --> 00:10:33.600 again for this job? They did. Gropius was actually 00:10:33.600 --> 00:10:36.639 a competitor for the St. John's Abbey job. But 00:10:36.639 --> 00:10:39.100 Gropius himself reportedly told the monks that 00:10:39.100 --> 00:10:41.419 they needed a younger man to finish the project. 00:10:41.700 --> 00:10:44.720 Oh, that's incredible. Right. And so Breuer beats 00:10:44.720 --> 00:10:47.639 out his old mentor for this legacy -defining 00:10:47.639 --> 00:10:51.399 commission. It is a poetic passing of the torch. 00:10:51.639 --> 00:10:54.220 To truly appreciate how he reached this point 00:10:54.220 --> 00:10:56.620 of mastery, I think we need to understand his 00:10:56.620 --> 00:10:59.460 progression. The text outlines four distinct 00:10:59.460 --> 00:11:02.039 phases his architectural vocabulary moved through. 00:11:02.059 --> 00:11:04.279 Can we walk through those? Certainly. Understanding 00:11:04.279 --> 00:11:06.860 these phases clarifies why his buildings look 00:11:06.860 --> 00:11:09.480 the way they do. Phase one was the white box 00:11:09.480 --> 00:11:11.639 and glass school of the international style. 00:11:11.840 --> 00:11:13.740 For those who might not be familiar, what exactly 00:11:13.740 --> 00:11:16.720 makes a building international style? It refers 00:11:16.720 --> 00:11:19.039 to an architectural style that emerged in the 00:11:19.039 --> 00:11:22.759 1920s and 30s that was entirely unadorned and 00:11:22.759 --> 00:11:26.039 geography agnostic. It didn't rely on local cultural 00:11:26.039 --> 00:11:28.740 traditions or historical decorations. It was 00:11:28.740 --> 00:11:31.639 universal flat roofs, smooth white surfaces, 00:11:31.860 --> 00:11:34.759 generous use of glass. We saw this in his early 00:11:34.759 --> 00:11:36.879 European houses and his first projects in the 00:11:36.879 --> 00:11:40.360 U .S. Okay, very sleek, very rigid. What prompted 00:11:40.360 --> 00:11:43.700 phase two? A desire for more warmth and texture. 00:11:43.879 --> 00:11:46.299 Phase two and characterized by punctured wooden 00:11:46.299 --> 00:11:49.600 walls. We saw this in his 1949 MoMA house in 00:11:49.600 --> 00:11:51.899 the garden and several modest homes he built 00:11:51.899 --> 00:11:54.200 for university faculty families. Right. This 00:11:54.200 --> 00:11:56.399 phase also prominently featured the cantilever, 00:11:56.440 --> 00:11:58.500 which is essentially a structural beam anchored 00:11:58.500 --> 00:12:01.340 at only one end. It allows elements like a balcony 00:12:01.340 --> 00:12:04.100 or an entire room to extend outward and seemingly 00:12:04.100 --> 00:12:06.419 float in midair without visible support beneath 00:12:06.419 --> 00:12:08.519 them. That floating effect is such a hallmark 00:12:08.519 --> 00:12:11.139 of mid -century design. Then we hit phase three. 00:12:11.179 --> 00:12:13.779 which introduces the heavy industry. Precisely. 00:12:14.080 --> 00:12:17.820 Phase III is defined by modular, prefabricated 00:12:17.820 --> 00:12:21.240 concrete panel facades. As his commissions grew 00:12:21.240 --> 00:12:23.240 to the scale of massive government and corporate 00:12:23.240 --> 00:12:26.919 headquarters, he needed efficiency. He first 00:12:26.919 --> 00:12:29.500 used this in closing his favorite IBM laboratory 00:12:29.500 --> 00:12:32.220 in France and then applied it to entire towns. 00:12:32.519 --> 00:12:35.240 But didn't people criticize that? They did. When 00:12:35.240 --> 00:12:37.259 critics pointed out the repetitiveness of this 00:12:37.259 --> 00:12:39.899 modular system, Rohr had a wonderfully pragmatic 00:12:39.899 --> 00:12:43.220 defense. He told a professional friend, I can't 00:12:43.220 --> 00:12:45.100 design a whole new system every Monday morning. 00:12:45.379 --> 00:12:47.320 That is the most brutally honest architectural 00:12:47.320 --> 00:12:49.919 quote I have ever heard. Which brings us to phase 00:12:49.919 --> 00:12:53.059 four. Phase four is the era of stone and shaped 00:12:53.059 --> 00:12:55.659 concrete. He moved away from flat panels and 00:12:55.659 --> 00:12:57.899 began using board -formed concrete. And board 00:12:57.899 --> 00:12:59.899 -formed concrete is when they pour the wet concrete 00:12:59.899 --> 00:13:02.399 into wooden molds, correct? So when the mold 00:13:02.399 --> 00:13:05.059 is removed, the solid concrete permanently retains 00:13:05.059 --> 00:13:07.700 the texture and grain of the wood. Exactly. It 00:13:07.700 --> 00:13:10.559 gives a cold industrial material a remarkably 00:13:10.559 --> 00:13:14.200 organic, tactile quality. He used this technique 00:13:14.200 --> 00:13:16.899 for incredibly unique sculptural commissions. 00:13:17.399 --> 00:13:20.440 This includes his best -known project, the Met 00:13:20.440 --> 00:13:22.960 Brewer, formerly the Whitney Museum of American 00:13:22.960 --> 00:13:25.960 Art and... Manhattan, he took concrete and turned 00:13:25.960 --> 00:13:29.100 it into a heavy, expressive art form. Now, building 00:13:29.100 --> 00:13:31.779 these sweeping concrete behemoths couldn't have 00:13:31.779 --> 00:13:34.720 been a one -man job. Who was working in his studio 00:13:34.720 --> 00:13:37.539 during this peak era? That is a vital part of 00:13:37.539 --> 00:13:40.639 his legacy. Breuer was a staunch champion of 00:13:40.639 --> 00:13:42.480 diversity within the architectural profession. 00:13:42.840 --> 00:13:45.580 He actively supported the Council for the Advancement 00:13:45.580 --> 00:13:47.960 of the Negro in Architecture, or ACHIEM. That's 00:13:47.960 --> 00:13:50.220 great to hear. Yes. He specifically employed 00:13:50.220 --> 00:13:52.740 Beverly Lorraine Green, who was recognized as 00:13:52.740 --> 00:13:54.980 the first African -American woman to be licensed 00:13:54.980 --> 00:13:57.559 as an architect in the United States. She worked 00:13:57.559 --> 00:13:59.600 as a draftsperson on a number of his significant 00:13:59.600 --> 00:14:02.539 projects in the 1950s, including the Grosse Pointe 00:14:02.539 --> 00:14:05.539 Public Library. It is excellent to see that kind 00:14:05.539 --> 00:14:07.440 of progressive action within his own studio. 00:14:07.950 --> 00:14:09.730 However, as we move into the later part of his 00:14:09.730 --> 00:14:13.129 career, specifically the late 1960s, the public 00:14:13.129 --> 00:14:16.289 reaction to his work becomes contentious. His 00:14:16.289 --> 00:14:19.549 adoption of heavy, unyielding concrete aligns 00:14:19.549 --> 00:14:22.570 with what became known as brutalism. Yes, brutalism. 00:14:22.830 --> 00:14:24.889 Let's look at the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building, 00:14:24.990 --> 00:14:26.490 the headquarters for the U .S. Department of 00:14:26.490 --> 00:14:29.330 Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, in Washington, 00:14:29.490 --> 00:14:34.299 D .C., completed in 1968. As objective observers, 00:14:34.720 --> 00:14:36.899 we simply need to report how this was received 00:14:36.899 --> 00:14:40.019 historically, because the backlash was intense. 00:14:40.379 --> 00:14:43.299 It was polarizing, to put it mildly. While it 00:14:43.299 --> 00:14:45.299 received some initial praise from architectural 00:14:45.299 --> 00:14:48.139 circles, the text notes that it has faced widespread, 00:14:48.500 --> 00:14:50.820 enduring criticism from the people who actually 00:14:50.820 --> 00:14:52.720 work there. What were they saying? Former Secretary 00:14:52.720 --> 00:14:55.019 of HUD Jack Kemp once famously described the 00:14:55.019 --> 00:14:58.350 building as 10 floors of basement. Yeah. Another 00:14:58.350 --> 00:15:00.809 former secretary, Sean Donovan, stated bluntly 00:15:00.809 --> 00:15:02.990 that the building is among the most vile in all 00:15:02.990 --> 00:15:06.269 of Washington, and with good reason. Many critics 00:15:06.269 --> 00:15:08.570 argued the design was unoriginal, essentially 00:15:08.570 --> 00:15:11.029 mimicking his previous work on the UNESCO headquarters 00:15:11.029 --> 00:15:13.990 without adapting to the specific environment 00:15:13.990 --> 00:15:16.990 of D .C. Ten floors of basement is a staggering 00:15:16.990 --> 00:15:21.269 critique. But 1968 was a wild year for him, full 00:15:21.269 --> 00:15:24.240 of extreme highs and crushing lows. If we connect 00:15:24.240 --> 00:15:26.860 this to the bigger picture, the irony of 1968 00:15:26.860 --> 00:15:30.120 is truly profound. In the exact same year that 00:15:30.120 --> 00:15:32.500 Breuer is awarded the gold medal of the American 00:15:32.500 --> 00:15:34.539 Institute of Architects, which is their highest 00:15:34.539 --> 00:15:36.960 honor, awarded at their 100th annual convention, 00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:39.860 he is simultaneously facing a tidal wave of public 00:15:39.860 --> 00:15:42.200 outrage in New York City. What triggered the 00:15:42.200 --> 00:15:44.639 outrage in New York? He proposed building a multi 00:15:44.639 --> 00:15:47.980 -story modern office tower directly on top of 00:15:47.980 --> 00:15:50.019 Grand Central Terminal. On top of one of the 00:15:50.019 --> 00:15:51.919 most beloved historic buildings in the country? 00:15:52.200 --> 00:15:54.960 Yes. It was a proposition that galvanized the 00:15:54.960 --> 00:15:57.570 public and preservationists against him. The 00:15:57.570 --> 00:16:00.350 tower was never built, and proposing it cost 00:16:00.350 --> 00:16:04.129 Breuer many friends and supporters. But the historical 00:16:04.129 --> 00:16:07.549 impact of that specific failure cannot be overstated. 00:16:07.610 --> 00:16:10.809 The fight over his Grand Central design went 00:16:10.809 --> 00:16:13.809 all the way to the U .S. Supreme Court. Its defeat 00:16:13.809 --> 00:16:16.389 there was a landmark victory that legally established 00:16:16.389 --> 00:16:18.909 the right of New York, and subsequently other 00:16:18.909 --> 00:16:21.529 cities, to protect their historic buildings from 00:16:21.529 --> 00:16:24.590 development. Breuer's unbuilt tower accidentally 00:16:24.590 --> 00:16:27.090 birthed the modern historic preservation movement. 00:16:27.330 --> 00:16:30.309 So what does this all mean? When you look back 00:16:30.309 --> 00:16:32.710 at his life from 1902 to his death in Manhattan 00:16:32.710 --> 00:16:36.450 in 1981, it is a staggering journey. His trajectory 00:16:36.450 --> 00:16:38.710 is a perfect reflection of the 20th century itself. 00:16:39.049 --> 00:16:41.779 He synthesized the genius around him. During 00:16:41.779 --> 00:16:43.759 his life, he rarely acknowledged the influence 00:16:43.759 --> 00:16:45.940 of other architects, but you can see he picked 00:16:45.940 --> 00:16:48.320 up the use of rough board formed concrete from 00:16:48.320 --> 00:16:51.220 the Corbusier and the noble dignity of Mies van 00:16:51.220 --> 00:16:53.740 der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion is alive in his 00:16:53.740 --> 00:16:56.419 residential work. Shortly before he died, he 00:16:56.419 --> 00:16:58.799 told an interviewer that he considered his principal 00:16:58.799 --> 00:17:01.620 contribution to be the adaptation of the work 00:17:01.620 --> 00:17:04.460 of older architects to the needs of modern society. 00:17:04.859 --> 00:17:07.640 He was the great translator of modernism. And 00:17:07.640 --> 00:17:10.299 his cultural relevance hasn't faded. His legacy 00:17:10.299 --> 00:17:12.980 continues to surface in unexpected ways. For 00:17:12.980 --> 00:17:15.079 instance, Breuer was a partial inspiration for 00:17:15.079 --> 00:17:17.539 the character of Laszlo Toth in Brady Corbett's 00:17:17.539 --> 00:17:20.220 recent film The Brutalist. If you watch the film, 00:17:20.279 --> 00:17:21.819 several of the character's furniture designs 00:17:21.819 --> 00:17:24.359 are highly reminiscent of Breuer's actual work, 00:17:24.480 --> 00:17:26.819 like the tubular steel chairs and a long chair. 00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:29.720 He remains in our cultural bloodstream. Which 00:17:29.720 --> 00:17:31.940 leaves us with a fascinating dynamic to consider. 00:17:32.680 --> 00:17:35.099 Architecture is arguably the only art form you 00:17:35.099 --> 00:17:37.480 truly cannot escape. It sits right in the middle 00:17:37.480 --> 00:17:40.079 of our daily lives, imposing itself on our commute, 00:17:40.220 --> 00:17:43.259 our workspaces, our homes. Public aesthetic tastes 00:17:43.259 --> 00:17:45.500 inevitably swing like a pendulum over the decades. 00:17:45.859 --> 00:17:48.200 What is considered a masterpiece today might 00:17:48.200 --> 00:17:51.000 be an eyesore tomorrow and vice versa. That is 00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:52.599 a brilliant point. So here's a final thought 00:17:52.599 --> 00:17:55.640 for you to mull over. How should society handle 00:17:55.640 --> 00:17:58.539 the massive, unyielding, concrete, brutalist 00:17:58.539 --> 00:18:01.579 structures of the past? Knowing how fiercely 00:18:01.579 --> 00:18:04.859 tastes change over a generation, will the buildings 00:18:04.859 --> 00:18:07.779 currently dismissed as reviled or described as 00:18:07.779 --> 00:18:10.059 ten floors of basement eventually become the 00:18:10.059 --> 00:18:13.200 fiercely protected, irreplaceable historic landmarks 00:18:13.200 --> 00:18:15.640 of tomorrow? is something to think about the 00:18:15.640 --> 00:18:17.579 next time you walk past a heavy concrete facade 00:18:17.579 --> 00:18:20.059 in your city. Thank you so much for joining us 00:18:20.059 --> 00:18:21.940 on this deep dive into the extraordinary life 00:18:21.940 --> 00:18:23.559 and work of Marcel Breuer. We'll see you next 00:18:23.559 --> 00:18:23.759 time.