Born in Hungary, Marcel Breuer spent some time working in an architect office in Vienna before studying at the Bauhaus in Weimar between 1920 and 1924. After graduating he became the head of the furniture workshop at the Bauhaus.

Breuer started his own architect office in Berlin, but left Germany 1931 for England. There he worked first as an architect and became later a Controller of Design at Isokon.

In 1937 he emigrated to the United States of America where Breuer worked as an associate professor at the School od Design at Harvard University. During that time he shared also an architectural practice with Walter Gropius. Later on, Breuer started his own design firm in New York, Breuer and Associates.