Modernism on Cape Cod

From Bauhaus to Breuer

A Bauhaus Reunion on Cape Cod

In the summer of 1937, Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus and a professor at Harvard’s new Graduate School of Design, rented a house on Planting Island, near the base of Cape Cod. There, he and his wife, Ise, hosted a festive reunion of Bauhaus masters and students who had recently emigrated from Europe: Marcel Breuer, Herbert Bayer, László Moholy-Nagy, Xanti Schawinsky, and others. Together, they feasted, swam, and planned their futures on a new continent, all sensing they were on the cusp of a momentous new phase in their lives.

The Rise of Modern Architecture on Cape Cod

Even as they moved on to new lives, the group never lost its connection to the Cape Cod coast. Once they had the means, several members returned to travel farther up the peninsula, rent cabins, buy land, and design their ideal summer homes. Thus began a chapter in the history of modern architecture that has never been told—until now. The flow of talent onto the Outer Cape continued, and within a few years, the area became a hotbed of intellectual currents from New York, Boston, Cambridge, and the country’s top schools of architecture and design. Avant-garde homes began to appear in the woods and on the dunes; by the 1970s, there were around 100 modern houses of interest here.

A Regional Modernist Movement

In this story, we meet, among others, the Boston Brahmins Jack Phillips and Nathaniel Saltonstall; the self-taught architect, carpenter, and painter Jack Hall; the Finn Olav Hammarström, who had worked for Alvar Aalto; and the prolific Charlie Zehnder, who brought the lessons of both Frank Lloyd Wright and Brutalism to the Cape. Initially, these designers had no clients; they built for themselves and their families, or for friends who shared their ideals. Their homes were laboratories, places to work through ideas without spending much money. The result of this creative ferment is a body of work unlike any other, a regional modernism fusing the building traditions of Cape Cod fishing towns with Bauhaus concepts and postwar experimentation.

The Influence of Marcel Breuer

Marcel Breuer, a key figure in this community, brought not only his architectural vision to Cape Cod but also his revolutionary furniture designs, such as the Laccio table, the Cesca chair, and the famous Wassily chair. These pieces, with their innovative use of bent steel and functional forms, perfectly complemented the avant-garde and modernist aesthetic that defined the homes on the Cape.

Restoration of Breuer’s Summer Home

The summer home of architect Marcel Breuer near Wellfleet, Massachusetts, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The news comes via the Cape Cod Modern House Trust (CCMHT), which bought the property from Breuer’s son in July with the intent to restore it and eventually host residencies for artists, architects, and scholars there. Breuer’s home is among the roughly 100 modernist houses in the area, several of which have already been listed on the National Register—a program of the US National Park Service. The house had fallen into disrepair, but these developments bring hope for restoration and new life, ensuring that Breuer’s legacy and contributions to modernist design continue to thrive on Cape Cod.

Footnotes: 
Text and Images: Knoll - The New York Times