Projects by Name

In 1962, Breuer designed a house for Gerrit Van der Wal, a Dutch businessman and art collector who Breuer first met when he worked on the De Bijenkorf Department Store in Rotterdam almost a decade earlier. Breuer and his associate Hamilton Smith created a sculptural concrete residence with asymmetrical sloping roofs and windows largely confined to the short ends of the rectangular plan. Construction drawings show the stark façade of the building enlivened by patterns from the formboards used to create the concrete panels of the walls. A concrete beam flanked by boiler flues seemed to protrude from the slanting roof. Visitors entered a short hallway leading to the kitchen and dining room. To the left a gallery with a fireplace ran the full width of the house and opened out to an enclosed courtyard. To the right down a few steps could be found a large living room and two studies. Sliding glass panels led to an outdoor terrace defined by a low wall. Breuer placed bedrooms, bathrooms and a dressing room upstairs and storage, a sitting room and dressing room in the basement. The clients worried that the house might be dark and had trouble obtaining permission to build. They eventually purchased an existing house in Amstelveen and abandoned plans to build Breuer’s design.