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Kogan, David

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Hotel Marcel - the former Pirelli Tire Building designed by Marcel Breuer in the late 1960s brought back to life by Becker & Becker. Born in 1902 in Pécs Hungary, Marcel Breuer began his artistic career as scholarship student in Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts. ‘Lajkó’ stayed briefly before switching to an architecture apprenticeship. Again he left and in 1921 he headed to the Bauhaus in Weimar studying under Johannes Itten. Attending the school’s director Walter Gropius’ carpentry classes he was spotted as an exceptional student and Gropius gave him an apprenticeship in his firm, which led to Breuer creating the furniture for Gropius’ Sommerfeld House project in Berlin. This was the beginning of a long collaboration. When Breuer completed his studies he joined Pierre Chareau’s office in Paris but the offer of a role as Bauhaus Junior Master in the Carpentry Department took him back to Germany. He stayed for 3 years during which time he is credited as the first designer to create a chair capable of production for a domestic market using tubular steel. Working in industry pivoted him into the commercial world, perhaps he would have stayed in Germany until the political situation ignited and it was no longer safe for him to remain in Germany because of his heritage. His return to Hungary in 1934 was hampered by his inability to obtain his certificate to practice from the Hungarian Chamber of Architects (due entirely to the fevered political climate). He briefly went into partnership with Farkas Molnar and Joszef Fischer until 1935 when he followed Gropius & Moholy-Nagy to London to work for Jack Prichard’s Isokon Company. Here he designed the plywood long chair. Gropius left for the US and became Director of the Department of Architecture at Harvard. Breuer followed teaching in the Grad School of Design 1937-1946. Breuer set up his own practice in Cambridge Massachusetts and later New York. His career went from strength to strength and to be honest its hard to pick out a ‘best of’ post-war selection from one of the 20th century’s greatest modernists, but the Pirelli Tire building is without doubt a stand out example. Photo with thanks to @modarchitecture

Brutalism explained - the Barbican from lakeside

Brutalism explained - the Barbican from lakeside

Palace of Culture and Science, from our hotel wind

Palace of Culture and Science, from our hotel window, described when it was completed in 1955 as a ‘gift’ from the Soviet Union to the Polish people, however the locals described their gift somewhat differently, with the nickname ‘Stalin’s syringe’.

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