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German History in Documents and Images
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Marcel Breuer, Nesting Tables (1927)
Hungarian-born furniture designer and architect Marcel Breuer (1902-1981) started off as a student at the Bauhaus. In 1925, he became a “young master.” That same year he began designing metal furniture out of tubular steel. His designs, particularly the “Wassily chair,” named after his Bauhaus colleague Wassily Kandinsky, would become icons of 20th-century furniture design. The nesting tables shown here exemplify the functional and practical aesthetics for which Breuer was known. Primarily regarded as a furniture designer in Germany, he became better known as an architect after his forced emigration to the United States in 1937. In the U.S., he continued to work with Bauhaus founder and fellow émigré Walter Gropius.