Projects by Name

In 1935, Crofton Gane, the director of the furniture manufacturer and distributor P. E. Gane Ltd., hired Breuer and Yorke to renovate a two-story house he had purchased. Breuer and Yorke made limited alterations to the exterior, mostly to the windows and doors but substantially changed the interior of the house. The architects added a new staircase, with metal supports and a tubular steel balustrade, replaced the plumbing and electrical systems and installed electric heat. They also opened the dining room to the garden and added a wall of undulating asbestos paneling in the dining room. Breuer designed much of the furniture for the house, creating plywood beds and aluminum side chairs and black lacquered wall cabinets. He also included the desk he had designed for Wohnbedarf and the semicircular, glass-topped pier table first used in the Werkbund's contribution to the 1930 exhibition of the Paris Salon des Artistes Décorateurs. The client was extremely pleased with the design and wrote a glowing letter of praise to Breuer. Breuer would use elements of the design in later residential projects; the cantilevered stair, for example, made an appearance in the Hagerty House and the Ferry Cooperative Dormitory.