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George Goodwin Collection Relating to Marcel Breuer

An inventory of the collection at Syracuse University


Finding aid created by: MRC
Date: 11 Jan 2010

Biographical History

Marcel Breuer (1902-1981) was an influential modernist architect and furniture designer. Born in Hungary of Jewish descent, he worked with Gropius and studied and taught at the Bauhaus. Among his notable buildings are the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, and St. John's Abbey and other buildings on the St. John's University campus in Collegeville, Minnesota.

Achievements of Max Abramovitz's firm, Harrison, Abramovitz, & Abbe, include the United Nations Headquarters building in New York, Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, the Corning Glass Center in Corning, New York, and the Tour Gan (formerly the Tour Nobel) in Paris.

Edward L. Barnes was an American modernist architect whose buildings include the IBM headquarters in New York, the Smart Museum in Hyde Park, and various structures at the Chicago Botanic Gardens.

The mother-in-law of Mary Hagerty (Mrs. Frances Hagerty) was one of Breuer's earliest clients. At the time of interviewing, she still lived next door to the Hagerty House in Cohassett, Massachusetts.

I. M. Pei is a Chinese-born American architect; also a modernist, his work includes the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, the East Building for the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the Louvre Pyramid in Paris.

George M. Goodwin has written and lectured on Frank Lloyd Wright, synagogue and museum architecture, Holocaust memorials, and other aspects of American Jewish history. A specialist in oral history research, he is also the archivist of Temple Beth-El in Providence, Rhode Island.

Scope and Contents of the Collection

The George M. Goodwin Collection Relating to Marcel Breuer consists of audiocassettes containing oral history interviews about Breuer with noted architects I. M. Pei, Edward L. Barnes and Max Abramovitz.

Arrangement of the Collection

Tapes are in alphabetical order by interviewee.

Restrictions

Access Restrictions:

The majority of our archival and manuscript collections are housed offsite and require advanced notice for retrieval. Researchers are encouraged to contact us in advance concerning the collection material they wish to access for their research.

Original tapes are restricted. Researchers should use the digital copies provided on CD (in the box with the tapes).

Use Restrictions:

Written permission must be obtained from SCRC and all relevant rights holders before publishing quotations, excerpts or images from any materials in this collection.

Related Material

All audiocassettes have been digitized onto CDs, which are included in the collection.

See also the Marcel Breuer Papers. Special Collections Research Center also has nearly thirty collections relating to architects and architecture; please refer to the SCRC Subject Index for a complete listing.

Subject Headings

Persons

Abramovitz, Max, 1908-2004.
Barnes, Edward Larrabee, 1915-2004.
Breuer, Marcel, 1902-1981.
Pei, I. M., 1917-

Subjects

Architecture, Modern.

Genres and Forms

CD-ROMs.
Interviews.
Oral histories (literary works)
Research notes.

Occupations

Architects.

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Preferred citation for this material is as follows:

George Goodwin Collection Relating to Marcel Breuer,
Special Collections Research Center,
Syracuse University Libraries

Acquisition Information

Gift of George M. Goodwin, 1993.

Table of Contents

Interviews

Inventory

Note on alternate formats:

All audiocassettes have been digitized onto CDs, which are included in the collection.