PEP AVILÉS of the actual histories generating those images; on the other, they facilitated cultural ROGUE OBJECTS integration, formal evolution, and the Marcel Breuer through fulfillment of professional agendas. The popular press’s descriptions of a Multi-Lens Window: Breuer’s work after his arrival to Boston in Agency in the Afterlife 1938 underscored its potential contribution to mainstream modern American taste. of Images His work and particularly his persona “had not to be mistaken for a prophet of revolution,” I. ARRIVAL but as an “adaptive force,” attempting to Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00678/1611601/thld_a_00678.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 “fuse” vernacular trends with the newest fads Narratives describing modernism as the and techniques in architecture.3 Breuer unambiguous set of formal traits resulting from was hardly a utopian designer, as he was more the process of modernization overlook the concentrated on the aesthetic renewal agency and ambivalence of the images made of materials than the exploration of radical during the early years of modern architecture.1 changes to local architectural culture. In Far from univocal, the changing reception the prewar circumspect aesthetic atmosphere of those images in different cultural contexts toward modern architecture, the link Breuer provides a good opportunity to trace created between past, present, and future morphological evolutions and unpack the emerged as a middle ground between modernity polysemic and generative character of modernity. and tradition. Maybe American taste found The re-presentation of the old in the face the modern architecture represented by Breuer of the new allowed for the survival of modern to be “unfamiliar,” but the aesthetic style architecture during the postwar years, an did follow the rebellious spirit of Henry David afterlife that internalized local “conditions Thoreau by selectively breaking with old of acceptance and resistance” and contributed conventions to accommodate a new décor for to the ongoing mystification of the origins life corresponding to the changing of modernism.2 Marcel Breuer’s midcareer technological demands of a modern society.4 work helps to illustrate the reconceptualizations The idea of the malleability of Breuer’s work that some of the images produced prior found voice in a Harvard Graduate School of to his arrival to the United States underwent. Design-organized exhibition at Robinson On the one hand, these productive Hall in June 1938. The show presented ninety- adjustments resulted from the concealment eight images of Breuer’s designs to that date An earlier version of the present essay was 1. I’m using here Detlef Mertins’s definitions (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota presented at the Temple Hoyne Buell Center of the terms modernity, modernization, Press, 2008). for the Study of American Architecture in and modernism. Detlef Mertins, Modernity 3. Irma Whitney, “Breuer Exhibition at 2015. The author would like to thank Reinhold Unbound (London: AA Publications, Harvard Links Old and New Architecture,” Martin and the organizers of the Dissertation 2011), 5. Recent work to unveil the intrinsic unidentified newspaper clipping, Marcel Colloquium for providing the opportunity paradoxes of modernity includes Robin Breuer Digital Archive, Image ID: to discuss his work. He also would like to Schuldenfrei, Luxury and Modernism: 00753-00, Syracuse University Libraries. recognize Beatriz Colomina, Denise Costanzo, Architecture and the Object in Germany See also W. Clifford Harvey, “Modern Spyros Papapetros, David Smiley, and 1900-1933 (Princeton: Princeton University Design in Homemaking Comes to New Claire Zimmerman’s contributions as key to Press, 2018). England: Simplicity Rules in Modern strengthening and clarifying the argument. 2. Edward Said and François Cusset Homes,” Christian Science Monitor, Finally, Barry Bergdoll’s remarks have underscored the reproductive character December 23, 1938, 11; and W. Clifford proven invaluable. of traveling ideas in the field of cultural Harvey, “Harvard Men Build Ultra- theory. Similarly, the dynamic reception Modern Houses in Colonial Settings,” PEP AVILÉS is Assistant Professor of the images and objects of the twenties Christian Science Monitor, July 7, 1939, 11. at the College of Arts and Architecture at contributed to the evolution of modern 4. W. Clifford Harvey, “Old Homes and Penn State University and editor architecture. Edward Said, “Traveling New Mingle in Lincoln,” Christian Science of the journal Faktur: Documents and Theory,” in The World, the Text, and the Monitor, February 9, 1940, n.p. Marcel Architecture. He is currently working Critic, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Breuer Digital Archive, Image ID: OS-22_ on the reception of Antoni Gaudí’s work University Press, 1983), 226 –47; François 032A-001, Syracuse University Libraries. in the postwar years. Cusset, French Theory, trans. Jeff Fort PART III and was accompanied by a laudatory catalog Marcel Breuer published on the occasion with a foreword written by Henry-Russell of the latter’s “House in the Museum Garden” Hitchcock. In it, Hitchcock augured Breuer’s erected at the Museum of Modern Art presence in Boston would be an opportunity in April of 1949, architect and historian to provide a new response to the never-closed Frederick Gutheim noted the Americanization debate between acolytes of modern of Breuer’s architecture. For Gutheim, and traditional architecture in the US: Breuer, among all the “refugees” who came to the US before and during the World War II, The special strength of the European showed a remarkable and unique disposition visitors in relation to American “to grow, to adapt” and “to acclimatize” Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00678/1611601/thld_a_00678.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 architecture has been their ability to to the American context. He developed, in analyze more sharply than we the Gutheim’s words, a “fresh and romantic components of [the] third concept of aesthetic in the new world vein.”6 Breuer’s the traditional, distinguishing embrace of American modernism was the technical aspects, which are valid not, however, that singular: for instance, contemporary tools, from the revivalistic Sigfried Giedion, who was influenced by US aspects, which are matters of design architectural historians, pointed to the alone. To paraphrase Breuer upon this balloon frame and the Windsor chair as the particular point: they believe. beginning of a long, productive relation that in using on occasion traditional between industrialization, simplicity, and materials, together with new ones, design following his arrival to the US.7 and at the same time transforming the Despite the parroted narratives trumpeting spirit of the tradition, in its deepest the successful integration of Breuer’s work sense, into a contemporary one, such into the the US, it is imperative to question a fusion, such a transformation the change in material expression that his should serve to develop further new architecture underwent during this period. forms, rather than in any way How did the American context affect the to restrict or reduce the potentialities evolution of Breuer’s architecture? Can we of modern architecture.5 speak of a new materiality at play after his arrival in the US? And, more importantly, did Only a decade later, Breuer’s work had the new cultural and technological context been completely integrated into the dominant provide new grounds to interpret his previous aesthetic of US modern architecture: for work? We can trace the complex integration of instance, in reviewing Peter Blake’s work on Breuer’s work by perusing the changing 5. Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Marcel Breuer Magazine of Modern Architecture 2, no. 3 when the former was still in London. and the American Tradition in Architecture (April 1932). Shelter, edited by Maxwell See the letter from Godfrey Samuel to (Cambridge, MA: Graduate School of E. Levinson, was the name that a renewed Marcel Breuer dated August 16, 1935. Design, Harvard University, 1938), 2. editorial team chose to continue the Marcel Breuer Papers, Special Collections Marcel Breuer Papers 1920–86, box 34, former T-Square, where, by the thirties, Research Center, Syracuse University exhibition files, Archives of American Art, some of these discussions had taken place. Libraries. In addition, the trope of Breuer Smithsonian Institution. Also available at See, for instance, Ralph T. Walker, as a transitional designer between the Frances Loeb Library Special “Prophets and ‘Isms’,” T-Square Club different traditions, styles, and contexts Collections, Harvard University Graduate Journal 11 (November 1931): 5, 34. was formed in the description of his School of Design. The catalog consists of 6. Frederick Gutheim, “The Americanization work during the forties and was publicly a few typewritten pages together with a of Marcel Breuer,” Architectural Record advertised as such. In a biographical description of all the images and objects 106, no. 3 (September 1949): 28. The issue entry on Breuer in 1941, we learn that exhibited. Neither the Houghton Library of American romanticism reemerged Breuer was “particularly interested in the (Dean’s Papers) nor the Pusey Library in his subsequent writings to qualify the adaptation of modern architecture to (University Archives) kept images of the multiplicity of formal responses that American needs and possibilities.” show. The Breuer exhibition was held