Marcel Breuer began his career in the mid 1920’s as a teacher at Germany’s famous Bauhaus school of art, then moving on to London in 1935 where he designed furniture for the Isometric Unit Construction Company.
Breuer had a love of working with metal, but was told that the British market was too traditional to accept metal furniture into their homes at the time, so had to adapt to working with plywood.
Breuer took to working with wood so well that the first wave of designs he crafted are now seen by many as landmarks of design for the 20 Century. He created five pieces where he utilised the plywood to make the best out of the material, forming it into a fluid, sinuous design. The furniture pieces included an armchair and a nest of tables.
Although regarded as design icons now, Breuer was his own biggest critic and, much like with his earlier career, was full of doubts on the designs he was creating.