Walter Gropius - By Chris Meiser

Walter Adolf Georg Gropius, one of the most celebrated pioneers of modern architecture, was born in Berlin, Germany in 1883. His heritage and family history was riddled with artists, craftsmen, and architects. Walter Gropius was born during a time in Germany where industrialization was just beginning to boom and his family was well connected with the government. Interestingly, Gropius could not draw well and used the help of others with such talent to interpret his designs. Gropius made a name for himself very early on in his career through his collaboration on the Faguswerk the Werkbund Exhibition. In 1914, he was called to fight in World War I and was wounded in battle, interrupting his work for only a short while. A major milestone in his life what when he was appointed director of an art school, which he developed into the Bauhaus. Further down the road Gropius would move to the United States and continue his impressive career as an architect and a teacher, until his death in 1969. Shortly after Gropius’ studies in architecture at Munich Technische Hochschule, he went to work for an architect by the name of Peter Behrens. He worked at his firm for 2 years before leaving and starting his own practice with his partner Adolf Meyer. Many of Gropius’ future designs were directly inspired by Behrens’ own projects and designs. Meyer and Gropius were also inspired by other architects, notably Frank Lloyd Wright in the design of the Cologne building in Germany. It was during these years that Gropius worked on the Faguswerk (Fagus) and the offices for the Werkbund Exhibition, often recognized as some of the more advanced building designs during the time in Europe. The Fagus, for example, may not seem so great to anyone today who sees a picture of it, because we are used to these buildings made from sheets of glass and metal, because these buildings are quite common now. During this time, however, most people had never seen a building like the Fagus. In 1914, World War I erupted and Gropius’ work came to a halt. He was called into the war and fought on the Western Front.

“For a central aspect of his work in education has been his understanding of the dangers to design inherent in the separation of head and hand, theory and practice, intellectual and manual worker, artist and craftsman.” – James Fitch. After WWI, Gropius’ career took an unexpected turn. In 1919, he was asked to be the director of the Grand Ducal Saxon School of Applied Arts and the Saxon Academy of Fine Arts, which he reorganized into the Staatliches Bauhaus, meaning State Building House. The idea behind the school was not only to combine theory and practice, as Fitch states, but to also combine art with technology and industry. This quickly developed into modern architecture and design, and attracted some of the biggest names in the field. It did not only teach architecture, but almost every area of design as well. It has influenced architecture, product design, fabrics, furniture, typography, painting, advertising, photography, and the list goes on. Gropius stated himself that “The Bauhaus believes the machine to be our modern medium of design and seeks to come to terms with it.” There are many designs to have been influenced or came out of the Bauhaus, but one stands out quite clearly, even today – door handles. Walter Gropius came up with a completely revolutionary design for door handles, so famous, in-fact, that we still use and see them all over the place today. Some of his other more unknown designs include: A diesel railway car and sleeping car for the German Railway, a line of mass produced furniture, steel furniture for a battleship and luxury furniture, silverware, and even a car (the Adler Cabriolet in 1930). One of his greatest architectural designs was the design of the new Bauhaus building when it was forced to move from Weimar to Dessau, but this was also a contract where knew the client better than any other he had in the past. Unfortunately, the postwar world and Nazism at the time did not agree with the Bauhaus or Walter Gropius, and the Bauhaus was forced to shut down in 1933. Before this

Gropius, unable to continue living in Nazi Germany, fled with his second wife, Ise Frank, to Britain. Here, he worked mainly on new designs for housing but his career in Britain did not last long. In 1937 Walter Gropius moved to the United States and began living in Massachusetts. He continued his work on housing and other projects as a senior partner in his architecture firm, and even designed his own house in Lincoln, Massachusetts, which is famous for its level of modernism during that time period. Soon after moving to The States, Gropius quickly got back into education, teaching as a professor in 1937 and becoming the Chairman of Architecture, Graduate School of Design, at Harvard in 1938 and remaining so until he was 69 years old. Walter Gropius did not constrain the Harvard graduate school of design to the Bauhaus curriculum, but instead applied his own philosophies on design, making Harvard one of the leading schools in architectural studies in the world and influencing many celebrated architects to this day. During his time at Harvard, we helped found The Architect’s Collaborative (TAC) in 1946, which he worked with to design and build the new Harvard Graduate Center in 1949. After Gropius’ tenure at Harvard, he went back to focusing on further architectural projects and designs. His final notable projects that he worked on with TAC include The U.S. Embassy in Athens (1960) and his design of the Baghdad University in Iraq in the same year. Gropius also worked with Emory Roth and Son, as well as Pietro Belluschi to design the Pan Am Building in New York, known now as the MetLife building, which opened in 1963.

Walter Gropius revolutionized what we know as modern architecture today. If you look around, most of the buildings you see have been somewhat influenced by Gropius’ teachings and philosophy. He was often criticized by others for being too revolutionary or simplistic, yet his developments have changed the way we design buildings, furniture, advertisements, appliances, and anything really. From the design of door handles we disregard every day, to the box shape buildings with glass walls and steel skeletons, Walter Gropius has paved the way to the world we know today. Without his vision and philosophy, our world might look a lot different. To sum up the man and his teachings, I end with a quote from one of his students and well known architect, Chester Nagel – “We who have been Gropius’ students can say gratefully that he has shown us a place in society; that he has taught us that mechanization and individual freedom are not incompatible; that he has explained to us the possibilities and values of communal action.”

Bibliography:

BBC Four - Audio Interviews - Walter Adolf Gropius. 5 Aug. 2009 . .

Epstein-Pliouchtch, Marina. "Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius: contacts prior to the Second World War.." Journal of Architecture 9(2004): 5-22.

Fitch, James . Walter Gropius. New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1960. Print.

Giedion, S.. Walter Gropius: Work and Teamwork. New York: Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1954. Print.

Huxtable, Ada, Louise. On Architecture: Collected Reflections On A Century of change. New York: Walker & Company, 2008. Print.