This Marcel Breuer–Designed Brutalist Building Has Reopened as a Net-Zero Luxury Hotel

Marcel Breuer was at the height of his fame, in 1968, when he was commissioned to design new headquarters for the Armstrong Rubber Company, in New Haven, Connecticut. His brutalist plan comprised nine stories of block-cast concrete facade, with administrative offices suspended over low-slung workshops for research and development, like a head on a recumbent body. The stygian structure towers high above the parking lot, two interstate highways, an IKEA outlet, and the nearby harbor wharf. An eerie relic of the modern industrial era, it has largely been abandoned for the past three decades, since its subsequent owner, Pirelli Tires, sold it, in 1988. 

But no longer: Breuer’s landmark complex has just reopened as Hotel Marcel New Haven, Tapestry Collection by Hilton. Designed and developed by Bruce Becker of Becker & Becker, it is also slated to be the first net-zero hotel in the United States, generating at least as much energy on-site as it consumes. Environmental sustainability was central to Becker’s plan from the very beginning, and will bring new life to a site that once produced parts for the gas-guzzling automobile industry. 

Becker bought the building, in 2019, for $1.2 million. Although that may seem like a bargain price, it doesn’t include the $4 million required for asbestos remediation. (This also meant that most of the historic interiors had to be removed.) Still, its location is advantageous: Hotel Marcel will be the closest lodging to Union Station, the tenth busiest Amtrak hub in the U.S., and is located within walking distance of the Yale West campus. Its upper floors offer dramatic harbor and downtown views.