Furniture designer, teacher, and architect Marcel Breuer is celebrated for changing the American house. But equally, his way of working and his signature buildings changed the image of corporate America and of religious, educational, and governmental complexes around the globe. Breuer emigrated from Europe, where he had trained at the Bauhaus, to Harvard, arriving in 1937. By 1946, he was in New York. From his commissions in the 1950s for St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota and UNESCO Headquarters in Paris until his retirement from practice in the late 1970s, Breuer was pioneering new forms for institutional structures.

Marcel Breuer: Building Global Institutions, edited by Barry Bergdoll and Jonathan Massey, has just been published by Lars Müller Publishers. Drawing on the recently digitized Breuer archive at Syracuse University, the volume includes chapters by ten authors on facets of Breuer’s practice. Four of the authors—Barry Bergdoll, Lucia Allais, Guy Nordenson, and Teresa Harris—will come together to discuss the book and the renewed appreciation for Breuer’s work and for so-called Brutalist architecture. The panel will be moderated by architectural historian Mary McLeod, professor at Columbia University, who worked briefly in the Breuer office as a young architect. The book will be available for purchase through Rizzoli.

Wednesday September 26, 6:00pm (please note earlier than standard start time)

Knoll Showroom
1330 Avenue of the Americas, at West 54th Street
Second Floor. Enter through building lobby
Reception to follow

Tickets: $15 Docomomo US Members; $25 General Admission.
Capacity limited. Advance registration required