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Architecture Without Rules: The Houses of Marcel Breuer and Herbert Beckhard
An armchair tour through twenty strikingly innovative houses.
Internationally famous for such buildings as the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (as well as for the ubiquitous "Breuer" chair), Marcel Breuer thrived on experimentation. From the 1950s through the 1970s, he and his associate Herbert Beckhard created a radical new type of American housing.
David Masello, a writer on architecture and urban design, interviewed Herbert Beckhard and many of the original clients. He introduces here twenty of Breuer and Beckhard's landmark houses, explaining how their aims are realized in the design, building materials, and use of each site.
black-and-white and color photos
Internationally famous for such buildings as the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (as well as for the ubiquitous "Breuer" chair), Marcel Breuer thrived on experimentation. From the 1950s through the 1970s, he and his associate Herbert Beckhard created a radical new type of American housing.
David Masello, a writer on architecture and urban design, interviewed Herbert Beckhard and many of the original clients. He introduces here twenty of Breuer and Beckhard's landmark houses, explaining how their aims are realized in the design, building materials, and use of each site.
black-and-white and color photos
- GenresArchitecture
172 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1993
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May 30, 2025
This is a great book covering residential houses designed by Marcel Breuer and Herbert Beckhard, including work produced on his own without Breuer. It features 20 houses and each house includes a legible floor plan, and numerous black and white photos, with a brief description, totaling about 6 pages per house. The very back has a selection of color plates.
The houses are arranged chronologically and for the most part the accompanying text is informative, and not overly technical. The images are generally useful, although it would be nice if some were larger to see more detail.
Where this book comes up a little short is it doesn’t cover all the houses designed by the Breuer firm, which would have made it a more complete and larger reference book. In addition, the section of color plates is a complete mess. The images are haphazardly arranged, not grouped together by project, not in chronological order, and not every house has color plates. There is no reference to the plates, so you have to flip back and forth to see if a particular project has any color images included or not.
It appears all the color plates are contemporary photos which is nice. It would be good if there were more color photos, especially of the interiors. It should also be noted, almost all the color images are reproduced in black and white for the respective profile of the corresponding house earlier in the book. This makes no sense as the same images appear twice on the book, in color and black and white.
Other than that, it is a great book, whether you are an architect, or just enjoy modernist houses of the 20th century.
Photos of the actual book can be found at Amazon
The houses are arranged chronologically and for the most part the accompanying text is informative, and not overly technical. The images are generally useful, although it would be nice if some were larger to see more detail.
Where this book comes up a little short is it doesn’t cover all the houses designed by the Breuer firm, which would have made it a more complete and larger reference book. In addition, the section of color plates is a complete mess. The images are haphazardly arranged, not grouped together by project, not in chronological order, and not every house has color plates. There is no reference to the plates, so you have to flip back and forth to see if a particular project has any color images included or not.
It appears all the color plates are contemporary photos which is nice. It would be good if there were more color photos, especially of the interiors. It should also be noted, almost all the color images are reproduced in black and white for the respective profile of the corresponding house earlier in the book. This makes no sense as the same images appear twice on the book, in color and black and white.
Other than that, it is a great book, whether you are an architect, or just enjoy modernist houses of the 20th century.
Photos of the actual book can be found at Amazon
Displaying 1 of 1 review