University of Virginia Library

Breuer Accepts Post
On A-School Faculty

Marcel Breuer, whose architectural
career has been described
as a "measured progression
from the design of a chair
to the design of a city," has
been named Thomas Jefferson
Memorial Foundation Professor
of Architecture at the University.

A leader in the use of new
architectural forms, Mr. Breuer
will be at the University for a
three-month term. He is the designer
of the New York City
Whitney Museum of American
Art and dozens of other major
buildings in the United States
and Europe.

Born in Hungary in 1902, Mr.
Breuer studied industrial design
in the 1920's at Germany's famed
Bauhaus. There he invented tubular
furniture and began a design
career that has been distinguished
by diversity and freedom
in exploring materials and technological
disciplines.

Mr. Breuer's designs for the
"Civic Center of the Future" included
such spontaneous ideas as
a Y-shaped office building which
has a maximum of naturally
lighted peripheral offices-a concept
he has utilized throughout
his career.

His use of concrete as a completely
plastic medium, which
made it possible to design a structure
as "sculpture with a function,"
is illustrated in the Paris
UNESCO building and further
developed in the IBM Research
Center in La Gaude, France.

Mr. Breuer has been chosen
by the American Federation of
Arts in cooperation with Time
Magazine as one of 13 architects
whose development of new forms
has made the most significant
contribution to contemporary
architecture.

His many other awards include
four Awards of Excellence given
by Architectural Record Magazine
for house design, the American
Institute of Architects 1965
Medal of Honor, and the New
York State Council on the Arts
State Award in 1967 for the
Whitney Museum.

At the University, Mr. Breuer
will teach a fourth-year design
course, said Joseph N. Bosserman,
dean of the School of Architecture.
"We look forward to
having a practicing architect who
also has an incredibly distinguished
career as a teacher, to
work with our students and faculty,"
he said.