continued

Kniffen House by Breuer and Noyes, 1949

Marcel Breuer designed a prototypical house that was built and temporarily displayed in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art. The Kniffen house may be the closest realization of the ideal he exhibited there. As an example of his "bi-nuclear" designs, the children's bedrooms and the master bedroom were distinctly separated.

"The modern world has no tradition for its eight-hour day, its electric light, its central heating, its water supply, or any of its technical methods. One can roundly damn the whole of our age; one can commiserate with, or dissociate oneself from, or hope to transform the men and women who have lost their mental equilibrium in the vortex of modern life — but I do not believe that to decorate their homes with traditional gables and dormers helps them in the least. On the contrary, this only widens the gulf between appearance and reality and removes them still further from that ideal equilibrium which is, or should be, the ultimate object of all thought and action."
— Marcel Breuer

Second Breuer House in New Canaan, 1951

Colors which you can hear with ears;
Sounds to see with eyes;
The void you touch with your elbows;
The taste of space on your tongue;
The fragrance of dimensions;
The juice of stone.
— Marcel Breuer

In contrast to Breuer's first house in New Canaan, his second house sits firmly on the ground. Perhaps inspired by the stone walls left by farmers that trace rectangular patterns through this part of Connecticut, Breuer used stone as a primary building material. As seen in the floor plan, the walls of his house seem to spin off into the landscape. The planar effect of the vertical surfaces is emphasized: no wall material ever seems to turn a corner.

"We 'modern' architects don't hate tradition — the opposite is true. I admire it and have traveled in old countries to look up old buildings, to study and photograph them, to analyze and discover their spirit. But I cannot use traditional methods when I want to build a house, although sometimes I wish I could. It is a more difficult task and a rather thankless one, this direct approach. But it is also more exciting."
— Marcel Breuer

"God knows, I am all for informal living and for architecture in support of and as background for this, but we won't sidestep the instinct towards achievement — a human instinct indeed. The most contrasting elements of our nature should be brought to happiness at the same time, in the same work, and in the most definite way. The drive to experiment is there, together with and in contrast to the warm joy of security at the fireplace. The crystallic quality of an unbroken white flat slab is there, together with and in contrast to the rough, 'texture-y' quality of natural wood or broken stone."
— Marcel Breuer

Second Noyes House in New Canaan, 1954

This courtyard house has two massive stone walls framing two glass wings. The only way to get from the bedroom wing to the living room wing is to pass outdoors under a covered roof. The courtyard contains Alexander Calder's sculpture "The Black Beast."

"I think of details in two senses. There are first the details of joints, connections, the attachment of different materials to each other, the turning of corners, the physical relating of parts of the building to each other. But I also think of larger special elements as details — such as stairs and fireplaces — in which there are of course numerous details in the other sense.

"In each case the architect has a useful and expressive architectural device. In a way, such architectural details are the architecture, but details alone — no matter how thought out or how consistent — cannot make architecture. Such details must play their part in relation to the over-all concept and character of the building, and are the means by which the architect may underline his main idea, reinforce it, echo it, intensify it or dramatize it.

"I like details of both sorts to be simple, practical, efficient, articulate, appropriate, neat, handsome, and contributory to the clarity of all relationships.

"The converse of this is that the spectator may observe and enjoy details, and find in them an extension of his experience and understanding of the architecture. In them he should be able to read, or least see reflected, the character and spirit of the entire building — as to see the universe in a grain of sand."
— Eliot Noyes   >>>

Discuss this article in the Architecture Forum...

Marcel Breuer in his first New Canaan home. Photo: Pedro E. Guerrero Extra Large Image The main floor of the 1948 Breuer house cantilevers off its foundation in four directions. Photo: Pedro E. Guerrero Extra Large Image The Ogden Kniffen family house in New Canaan, Connecticut, was designed by Marcel Breuer and Eliot Noyes in 1949. Photo: © Wayne Andres/Esto Extra Large Image Lower-floor plan drawing. Image: William Earls Extra Large Image Upper-floor plan drawing. Image: William Earls Extra Large Image The 1951 Breuer house in New Canaan is a one-story building, unlike the 1948 Breuer house and Breuer's earlier home in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Photo: E.J. Cyr Extra Large Image A long stone wall provides privacy from the street for rooms in the second Breuer house in New Canaan. Photo: E.J. Cyr Extra Large Image Floor plan drawing. Image: William Earls Extra Large Image   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.