Marcel Breuer- Bauhaus

Marcel Breuer was an American architect and furniture designer. He was born in Hungary. While he was a student in carpentry, he was enrolled at the Bauhaus. He was an outstanding student and whilst rejecting traditional forms, endeavoured to produce new forms for modern furniture. Breuer was inspired by De Stijl and also by Rietveld's Red-Blue chair, thus inspiring him to experiment with frames and supports for chair. Originally he used plywood for his creations.

Breuer went on to teach at Bauhaus and his favourite form of transport was the bicycle. Tubular steel was very light and strong and Breuer's creative ability led him to experiment with this tubular steel for his chair creations. By using tubular steel his chairs could be mass produced and the material could easily be bent to create furniture. He took the idea of a club chair and produced the Wassily chair.

The Wassily chair by Marcel Breuer

This style of chair is called a club chair, but the original chair that Breuer created was named Wassily after his friend and fellow teacher the painter Kandinsky. Kandinsky had praised the design of the chair, that is why Breuer named it after him. The main materials used for this chair are tubular steel and black canvas. The canvas is used for the seat, the back and the arms, making them seem to float on air. When Breuer created his chair his exact words were, ''this is my most extreme work, the least artistic, the most logical, the least cosy and the most mechanical''. In fact it was his most influential work, within a year that it first appeared, designers everywhere began experimenting with tubular steel. This took furniture making into a new dimension.

Criollo by Edgar Orlaineta

This creation was designed by a Mexican artist called Edgar Orlaineta. He named it Criollo. Orlaineta used a mixture of different media and materials including a bicycle, chromed steel, nylon, leather and a reproduction of the Wassily chair. The designer states that Marcel Breuer went to a bicycle factory to build his chair, so he wanted to create a bicycle using the chair. In Mexico you see tricycles being used for various sales. The front of the frame is like a box and they ride it around selling anything like toys, water and ladders. This is where he got the inspiration.

MoMA. 2009. Marcel Breuer. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A769&page_number=&template_id=6&sort_order=1#bio. [Accessed 26 January 14].

The Washington Post. 2008. Function Following Form. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/style/studio/021008.html. [Accessed 26 January 14].