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One of the renovation projects in New Canaan that we have been following for the last couple years is the expansion of Marcel Breuer's second New Canaan house. Called "Breuer 2" by some people in the area and other areas as well, it is in actually "Breuer 3" with "One" being the house he built for his family in Lincoln Massachusetts a stone's throw from the Walter Gropius House and "Two" being the modified home on Sunset Hill.
Anyway, while testing a link from the townhouse post to Prutting Construction's website (UPDATE: the photos of the completed renovation have been removed to honor the wished of Prutting Construction and Their client) I found new pictures of the completed project which was designed by the former head of the Harvard Architecture School, how appropriate since that is where Breuer and the rest of "the Harvard Five" (Breuer, Johnson, Noyes, Johansen and Gores) came from, Toshiko Mori.
Mori's approach seems to have been one of separation and preservation with the addition obviously the addition and the original home preserved, from the outside anyway, in near it's original form. It is a stunning bit of work. The addition, while new, does pay homage to the forms and themes used by Breuer and his contemporaries. It's almost as if the main living area from Johnson's Wiley House was lifted off it's foundations and placed next to the Breuer House.
The project shows that with a team effort, owners with foresight balanced with historical importance, a really good architect steeped in the traditions of modernism and its history and an accomplished and professional builder, that these moderns need not disappear.
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[caption id="attachment_298" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Known as Breuer 1 in New Canaan this is actually Breuer 2"]
[/caption][caption id="attachment_103" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="This is the real Breuer 1 in Lincoln Massachusetts."]
[/caption]Toshiko Mori
Prutting Construction
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