Projects by Name

The original modernist building for the De Bijenkorf Department Store, built by Willem Dudok in 1929-1930, was heavily damaged when the German air force bombed Rotterdam during World War II. The company decided to commission an entirely new store from Breuer, rather than rebuild Dudok's celebrated brick building. Breuer's store was to be located on Coolsingel, Rotterdam's main business thoroughfare, which city planning officials straightened during the rebuilding of the city center. Breuer began work on the department store in 1953, with construction completed in March of 1957. The Dutch architect Abraham Elzas, oversaw construction and handled the intricacies of building in the Netherlands. Breuer designed a square, five-story building with open-plan floors suitable for the display of goods. The main façade, which faced Coolsingel, was clad in a hexagonal pattern of travertine marble, a reference to the name of the department store which translates as beehive. The other elevations featured rectangular marble panels. Breuer incorporated display windows at ground level and three strips of windows above. Narrow slits in the marble provided additional illumination inside the store and created a pleasing pattern on the exterior, especially at night. Breuer also designed the Cineac movie theater and an office annex to the north of the department store. The influential critic, Lewis Mumford, described the steel and glass curtain wall of the office annex as "one of the best office-building façades I have seen anywhere." In order to balance the projecting façade of the nearby Hotel Astoria, Breuer asked Naum Gabo, a sculptor he had befriended during his time in London, to design a monumental sculpture. The city authorities rejected the first design, which was to be attached to the façade of the building, and so Gabo created a geometric abstraction of concrete, steel ribs, stainless steel, bronze wire and marble. The innovative field office of three, brightly colored hexagonal volumes elevated and supported by a steel column proved so popular that it was repurposed as a children's museum after construction was completed. In the early 1970s, Breuer's office designed a parking garage adjacent to the store.