A Sydney family’s connection to ‘The Brutalist’

The Brutalist won Adrien Brody the Best Actor’s Oscar for his mesmerising portrayal of its central character, Hungarian Jewish architect Laszlo Toth. Although Toth is a fictional character, the film’s director said he was drawn from two real-life Hungarian architects, Marcel Breuer and Ernő Goldfinger, predominantly based on the more celebrated Breuer.

For me Breuer is important for another reason: he was part of my extended family. Marcel Breuer and my great uncle Laszlo Buchwald were cousins – their mothers were sisters. But the connection between the two men extends beyond the family tree.

Both Buchwald and Breuer trained in Hungary to be apprentice cabinet-makers. Breuer was two years older than Buchwald and the family doesn’t know if they studied together. However, the training shaped the careers of both men’s lives.

Breuer went on to join the Bauhaus architecture school in Germany and emigrated to the US just before WW2. He became a renowned designer and architect, credited with creating the tubular chair, and famed for designing the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan.

Laszlo Buchwald’s life took a different turn, carving out a prominent career as an artisan furniture maker in Australia. In his early twenties Laszlo went to Milan to join a furniture design and construction company. In 1929, at the age of 25, he left for Australia with his sister and her family, arrived in Sydney and changed his name to Leslie Buckwell.