Word: breuer
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...famous Druid ruins, received a panning from the public and the press and pained reactions from the Roosevelt family. Earlier this year, the committee decided to try again, this time without a competition. After considering the work of 15 architects, it unanimously chose Hungarian-born, Bauhaus-trained Marcel Breuer, 64, whose recently opened inverted-ziggurat Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan drew hostile criticism until it proved to be a perfect host...
Jungle Identity. Not that the exhibition within-"Art of the United States: 1670-1966"-was overlooked. It hardly could be, for rarely, if ever, has a better survey of American art been assembled under one roof. But what won over the first nighters was Breuer's dramatic exterior combined with spacious, almost handcrafted interiors, including white canvas and plywood walls, split bluestone floors, and precast concrete grid ceilings, that seemed to recede impassively behind the art works on display...
Thus the museum is two different experiences: monumental on the outside and functional, well-lighted and roomy on the inside. This is precisely what Architect Breuer had hoped for. "A museum in Manhattan," he said, "should not look like a business or office building. Its form and material should have identity and weight in the dynamic jungle of our colorful city...
Signature Window. Breuer's problem began when he was handed a small corner plot only 104 ft. by 125 ft. To create within five stories a total floor space seven times as great as the site, he proceeded much like a Sardinian baker, who, with every piece of dough he subtracts, adds it back some place else in the loaf. Thus to compensate for space lost by the indoor-outdoor sculpture garden and the host of first-floor functional requirements, from coat racks and publications desk to unloading platforms, Breuer designed cantilevered upper floors to produce progressively larger galleries...
Realizing that a glass faÇade would only allow the polyglot architecture of Madison Avenue to intrude, Breuer walled off his neighbors with concrete blinders and nearly solid walls. Controlled ventilation and artificial light may make windows obsolete, but lack of them has the drawback of inducing claustrophobia. To allow "visual contact with the outside," he added seven trapezoidal windows, including the largest on the front facade, which acts as both a signature and a beacon...