House in MoMA Garden

Marcel Breuer – Exhibition House in the Garden Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1949

The decade following World War II witnessed an explosion of new housing in the United States. The American suburb was being reinvented and extensively built for the commuter family. In light of public interest in the new suburban home, and following a tradition of museums displaying full-scale architecture in their outdoor sculpture garden, the Museum of Modern Art in New York launched the exhibition House in the Garden in 1948. Initiated by Philip Johnson and Peter Blake, this exhibition aimed to display a full-scale demonstration house, not necessarily to compete with the mass-produced house, but rather to introduce “a tailor-made solution designed by the architect for a middle-income family." The Museum's Department of Architecture and Design sought to promote modern design in America by demonstrating "how beautiful it can be to live in a well-designed home."
Marcel Breuer was chosen as the first architect to design this type of house. He seemed perfect for the task, engaged in industrial furniture design, for which he became famous, but also a successful architect who worked mainly on single-family homes. 
After the exhibition ended, the house was purchased by the Rockefeller family, dismantled, and rebuilt on their estate in Pocatino, near New York.