Projects by Name

At the end of 1937 or the beginning of 1938, Bryn Mawr College asked Breuer to design furniture for a newly constructed dormitory, the neo-Gothic James E. Rhoads Residence Hall. Each room was to be outfitted with a desk and chair, dresser, full-length mirror and bookshelves, all executed in lacquered maple or birch. The designs were outgrowths of earlier furniture experiments. The desk with a bank of drawers on the left-hand side and a bent plywood leg on the right resembled many of Breuer's tubular steel designs. The chair continued experiments with cut-out plywood furniture, begun in England with commissions like the Ventris apartment. L-shaped pieces formed the sides of the seat and front legs and were connected with dowels to a long upright which formed the seat back and rear legs. An adjustable two-shelf bookshelf was mounted on the wall above the desk. The designs were approved with only minor revisions. Saybolt, Cleland and Alexander manufactured the furniture.