Marcel Breuer Furniture

The architect and designer Marcel Breuer was one the 20th century’s most influential and innovative adherents of modernism. A member of the Bauhaus faculty, Breuer — like such colleagues as the architects Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and the artists and art theoreticians László Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers — left Europe in the 1930s to champion the new design philosophy and its practice in the United States.
Born in Hungary, Breuer became a Bauhaus student in 1920 and quickly impressed Gropius, the German school’s founder, with his aptitude for furniture design. His early work was influenced by the minimalist Dutch design movement De Stijl — in particular the work of architect Gerrit Rietveld. In 1925, while he was head of the Bauhaus furniture workshop, Breuer realized his signature innovation: the use of lightweight tubular-steel frames for chairs, tables and sofas — a technique soon adopted by Mies and others. Breuer’s attention gradually shifted from design to architecture, and, at the urging of Gropius, he joined his mentor in 1937 on the faculty of Harvard and in an architectural practice.
In the 1940s, Breuer opened his own architectural office, and there his style evolved from geometric, glass-walled structures toward a kind of hybrid architecture — seen in numerous Breuer houses in New England — that pairs bases of local fieldstone with sleek, wood-framed modernist upper floors. In his later, larger commissions, Breuer worked chiefly with reinforced concrete and stone, as seen in his best-known design, the brutalist inverted ziggurat built in New York in 1966 as the home of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Breuer’s most famous furniture pieces are those made of tubular steel, which include the Wassily chair — named after Wassily Kandinsky and recognizable for its leather-strap seating supports — and the caned Cesca chair. Breuer also made several notable designs in molded plywood, including a chaise and nesting table for the British firm Isokon and a student furniture suite commissioned in 1938 for a dormitory at Bryn Mawr College. Whether in metal or wood, Breuer’s design objects are elegant and adaptable examples of classic modernist design — useful and appropriate in any environment.
Find vintage Marcel Breuer seating, storage cabinets and lighting on 1stDibs.




20th Century Mid-Century Modern Marcel Breuer Furniture
Chrome
1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Leather
Late 20th Century American Bauhaus Marcel Breuer Furniture
Steel
Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Marcel Breuer Furniture
Chrome
2010s German Marcel Breuer Furniture
Leather
20th Century Italian Modern Marcel Breuer Furniture
Chrome
1960s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Carrara Marble
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Marcel Breuer Furniture
Chrome
1920s German Bauhaus Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Brass, Nickel
1960s Spanish Mid-Century Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Brass
1920s German Bauhaus Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Brass, Nickel
1960s European Mid-Century Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Metal
1920s German Bauhaus Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Brass, Nickel
Late 20th Century Italian Marcel Breuer Furniture
Steel
Mid-20th Century Italian Bauhaus Marcel Breuer Furniture
Chrome
Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Marcel Breuer Furniture
Metal, Chrome
1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Chrome
1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Wicker
1960s Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Chrome
1970s Italian Bauhaus Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Metal
Mid-20th Century Italian Bauhaus Marcel Breuer Furniture
Chrome
2010s German Marcel Breuer Furniture
Steel
1980s British Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Plywood
1960s Italian Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Terrazzo
1960s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Metal
Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Marcel Breuer Furniture
Chrome
1960s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Stainless Steel
Mid-20th Century Italian Marcel Breuer Furniture
Chrome
Early 20th Century German Bauhaus Marcel Breuer Furniture
Chrome, Steel
1980s American Bauhaus Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Leather
Mid-20th Century Italian Bauhaus Marcel Breuer Furniture
Brass, Steel
1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Steel
1950s German Bauhaus Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Steel, Chrome
1970s European Mid-Century Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Chrome
1930s English Mid-Century Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Plywood
1980s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Steel
1930s American Mid-Century Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Metal
Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Marcel Breuer Furniture
Chrome
1980s Italian Bauhaus Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Steel, Chrome
Mid-20th Century German Bauhaus Marcel Breuer Furniture
Steel
Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Marcel Breuer Furniture
Chrome, Steel
Early 20th Century Czech Bauhaus Marcel Breuer Furniture
Chrome
1920s German Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Brass
Mid-20th Century European Marcel Breuer Furniture
Steel, Chrome
1930s English Mid-Century Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Plywood
Early 20th Century German Bauhaus Marcel Breuer Furniture
Steel
2010s German Marcel Breuer Furniture
Chrome
Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Marcel Breuer Furniture
Steel, Chrome
20th Century Czech Bauhaus Marcel Breuer Furniture
Chrome
2010s German Marcel Breuer Furniture
Leather
1950s Italian Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Wood
Mid-20th Century Mid-Century Modern Marcel Breuer Furniture
Metal
Late 20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Marcel Breuer Furniture
Metal, Chrome
1970s German Mid-Century Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Steel
1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Steel
1920s German Bauhaus Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Brass
1960s American Mid-Century Modern Vintage Marcel Breuer Furniture
Metal, Chrome
2010s German Marcel Breuer Furniture
Leather