Cleveland's connection to "The Brutalist"
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Adrien Brody on a press tour for "The Brutalist." Photo: Dominik Bindl/Getty Images
In the Oscar-nominated film "The Brutalist," Adrien Brody plays a Hungarian Jewish architect who has survived the Holocaust and is struggling to rebuild his life in Pennsylvania.
Why it matters: The fictional character László Toth is a composite of multiple Jewish artists in the Bauhaus movement. But Brody's biggest inspiration was Hungarian modernist architect Marcel Breuer.
- Clevelanders should be familiar with Breuer's name. The 9 in downtown Cleveland, formerly the Ameritrust Tower, is the only skyscraper he ever designed.
Catch up quick: Unlike Brody's character, Breuer immigrated to the United States before World War II, thanks to the support of renowned architect Walter Gropius.
- Breuer's major works include the UNESCO headquarters and IBM Research Center in France and the Whitney Museum in New York.
Zoom in: He also designed the Cleveland Museum of Art's education wing, which opened in 1971, and caught the eye of the Cleveland Trust Company, which sought to expand its headquarters downtown.
What happened: Breuer initially planned two 29-story towers to frame the historic Cleveland Trust rotunda on Euclid Avenue and East 9th Street, but only one was ultimately built.
- Ameritrust decamped to Public Square in the 90s after it merged with Society (later KeyCorp). The Breuer complex languished under county ownership and was nearly demolished to make way for a new county administrative building.
- It was renovated and reopened in 2015 as "The 9," which included a hotel, apartments and a Heinen's grocery store in the rotunda.
One fun thing: Breuer designed famous tubular steel chairs still widely used today.
- In "The Brutalist," one of Toth's first projects at his cousin's furniture shop is building a tubular steel chair.
🍿 What we're watching: "The Brutalist" and "Anora" look like they may be big winners at the Academy Awards on Sunday, but can Brody fend off Timothée Chalamet to earn his second Oscar?