“. . . The Technician Works with the Highest Level of Logic.”
Marcel Breuer
Marcel Lajos Breuer (1902 – 1981) was a Hungarian modernist artist, architect and furniture designer who was a key player in the Bauhaus movement.
Breuer left Hungary at the age of 18 to gain an artistic education. He became one of the first and youngest students to study at the Bauhaus school of art and design. Gropius (the head of the school) saw much talent in the young Breuer and made him head of the carpentry shop. After the school was forced to move to Dessau, Breuer returned to teach at the newly established architecture department.
Breuer is perhaps most well known for his pioneering work in furniture design. He strongly believed in the Bauhaus ideals of ‘form follows function’ and ‘less is more’ which helped inspire his most famous creation – the Wassily chair.
The ‘Wassily’ Chair
What really inspired Breuer’s famous chair design was the new invention of seamless tubular steel used in bicycle handlebars. He admired this sleek design and was inspired to create the simple, sleek and elegant design of the Wassily chair. Although widely believer to be designed for fellow Bauhaus master, Wassily Kandinsky, Breuer only later made an additional copy for Kandinsky after he remarked how much he admired the chair. The chair was renamed from the model B3 chair to the Wassily chair by the Italian manufacturers of the chair, Gavina, who wanted to capitalise on the anecdotal Kandinsky connection.
Breuer’s simple yet functional, Bauhaus approach to furniture design has had a huge impact on modern day furniture with pretty much any item from Ikea being a prime example of this.
Hogan Cymreig 