Marcel Breuer

Born in Hungary in 1902, Breuer trained at the Bauhaus, where he designed the Wassily Chair and the Cesca Chair in the 1920s — pieces The New York Times called among the most important chairs of the 20th century. He moved to the United States in 1937 and became a citizen in 1944. The carpentry vocabulary he'd honed in the Bauhaus workshop — cantilevered forms, industrial materials, sculptural economy — carried over into his architecture: art museums, libraries, college buildings, office towers, residences. Many landed in the Brutalist mode, raw concrete and bold volumes, including the former I…