Marcel Breuer’s Reston API Building Under Threat

The wrecking ball nearly swung early for a lesser-known work by Marcel Breuer situated in Reston, Va. So far, the motion has been stayed, but Reston planning officials meet on July 26 to discuss the building’s future. An ongoing “Save the API Building” petition, which is still soliciting signatures, allows you to voice your support for the building.

Here at BrutalistDC, we’re suckers for some bona fide Brutalism, and Marcel Breuer provided many striking examples of the style during his long architectural career. In Washington, D.C., Breuer was responsible for two massive government offices: the Department of Health and Human Services Hubert H. Humphrey Building, and the Department of housing and Urban Design Robert C. Weaver Federal Building.

On a more diminutive scale, and a little bit of a trek outside of D.C. proper (but still within reach of the Metro system via the Wiehle-Reston East Station on the Silver Line), Breuer designed the American Press Institute in 1972, and it was completed in 1974. The two story, 25,000-square-foot API Building served as a headquarters for journalist training until the API merged with the Newspaper Association of America and vacated the Breuer building in 2012.

The API Building has been empty ever since, and had fallen off the radar until housing developer Sekas submitted an application for rezoning of the property on which the API Building sits, claiming that there were “no known heritage resources” on the property, according to a report by Karen Goff for Reston Now.

Recent Press on the API Building compiled at SavetheAPIBuilding.com:

• Restonnow.com
  • July 22, 2016: “API Building Gets a New Vote — With Same Results — at Fairfax Planning Commission”
  • June 17, 2016: “Weekend Discussion: What should happen to the former API HQ?”
• The Washington Post
  • July 23, 2016: “Preservationists seek to save Reston building whose look they fear is vanishing”
  •  July 22, 2016: “Let’s save Reston’s API building”
• Architect Magazine, the journal of the AIA
  • June 17, 2016: “Temporary Stay of Demolition Granted for Virginia’s Sole Marcel Breuer Building”
• Washingtonian
  • June 16, 2016: “A Marcel Breuer Building in Reston May Get Knocked Down: Fairfax’s planning commission will help decide the Brutalist building’s fate on Thursday”
• Reston Connection
  • June 17, 2016: “After `Major Screw Up,’ Planning Commission Recommends Denial of API Building Permit”
  • July 6, 2016: “Two Perspectives, One Denial with Deadlock”
• Reston Citizens Association
  • July 5, 2016: “Will you help save one of Reston’s architectural treasures?”
• The Architect’s Newspaper
  • June 17, 2016: “SAFE! (FOR NOW): Endangered Marcel Breuer building gets a reprieve”
  • June 15, 2016: “Virginia’s only Marcel Breuer building threatened with demolition”
• Phaidon
  • June 13, 2016: `How you can save this Marcel Breuer building: The architect’s American Press Institute could be flattened – you can help hold back the wrecking ball’