Geller House I

Marcel Breuer – The Bertram (Bert) and Phyllis Geller House I, 1947

Commissioned shortly after World War II, architect Marcel Breuer designed the Geller House for Betram Geller to meet the needs of modern American family life.

The Geller family consisted of Bertram and Phyllis and their three children. Geller had specific ideas about how the house should be designed for his wife and children, but Breuer found those ideas very “child-unfriendly” and so convinced Geller to adopt a design concept that would better accommodate a growing family.
The house that Breuer proposed to build for Geller was “bi-nuclear”.
Breuer’s bi-nuclear concept, consistent with Breuer’s background, is rooted in the Bauhaus. The concept consisted of two elements that were joined, roughly in the shape of an “H.” The center of the “H” divided the daytime and nighttime uses: separating “…presentable spaces from the necessarily chaotic domain of children.”

In 1947, House & Garden referred to this house as a “complete departure” from the old-fashioned bungalow, where bedrooms radiated haphazardly from the main living rooms.” Breuer, in speaking of his residential designs, spoke primarily of their “practicality of operation” and how the design facilitated family life; the Geller house was designed with this convenience in mind.