Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MA

College

College of Creative Arts

Department

Art History

Committee Chair

Kristina Olson

Committee Co-Chair

Ron Dulaney, Jr.

Committee Member

Rhonda Reymond

Abstract

When Marcel Breuer accepted the commission to design the Clarksburg-Harrison Public Library, West Virginia in 1973, he saw the opportunity to create a public space for the citizens of Clarksburg, where individuals could become one community and would feel at home. The library building was intended to fulfill the hope of the city board to bring social and cultural welfare to the citizens of Clarksburg.;My hypothesis is that Marcel Breuer created a unique and intimate public library in West Virginia by integrating his characteristically domestic design elements in a public library. This thesis will demonstrate the domestic nature of the Clarksburg-Harrison Public Library, by exploring the stylistic elements of Breuer's private family houses and by examining Breuer's design approaches, methodology and principles.;In the current scholarship on Breuer's work there has been no published attempt to analyze and to classify the Clarksburg-Harrison Public Library building. Therefore, my research is based on primary sources from the Syracuse University Library, Digital Archive, New York, the Archive of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. and the Clarksburg-Harrison Public Library, West Virginia. With this thesis my goal is to contribute to the scholarship on Marcel Breuer and to place this previously unanalyzed building in the context of Breuer's body of work.

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