Marcel Breuer

Hungarian-born Marcel Breuer (1902-1981) was a Bauhaus student and later a Bauhaus teacher who followed his mentor to Boston shortly after the Gropiuses arrived in 1937. Gropius arranged an academic appointment at Harvard for Breuer and the two also established a private practice together. Breuer had run the furniture workshop at the Bauhaus but he was also an accomplished architect and a master of sun and shadow. Although the house was designed by Gropius, Breuer likely added some of the more innovative sun screens which appeared on the plans only after he had arrived in the U.S. In 1939, Breuer was also given the opportunity to build a modest house for himself on Helen Storrow’s land just down the hill from Gropius’s house.