Walter Gropius
1883-1969
“The building is the ultimate goal of all fine art”
The Bauhaus Manifesto, 1919.
The chronological context
of Gropius’ architecture
Chronological context in Architecture
- Modernism to Postmodernism 1890s
1900s
1910s
First generation
modernists
1920s
1930s
1940s
1950s
Second generation
modernists
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
Third generation
modernists
The pioneers of modernism.
They each treated form, space,
structure, materials and ornament in
novel ways.
These were the architects of ‘high
modernism’- the universal
International Style- as well as the
fashionable Art Deco period.
These were the architects of
Postmodernism.
They reacted against the orthodoxy of
high modernism.
Peter Behrens -
Berlin
Walter Gropius
Frank Gehry
Auguste Perret -
Paris
Le Corbusier
Philip Johnson
C. R. Mackintosh -
Glasgow
Mies van der Rohe
Charles Moore
Otto Wagner -
Vienna
Gerrit Reitveld
I. M. Pei
Adolf Loos -
Vienna
William Van Allen
Michael Greaves
Louis Sullivan -
Chicago
Napier Art Deco architects
Louis Kahn
Frank Lloyd Wright - Chicago and mid-western states of USA
Robert Venturi
The context of his architecture
Geographical context:
Walter Gropius was a German designer and architect whose teaching and practice were
based originally in Berlin and Dessau, Germany.
He migrated to the USA in 1937 and taught and practiced in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Cambridge
Dessau
Context continued…
Historical context:





Walter Gropius was a major pioneer of the modern movement. Through his teaching he became
one of the most influential designers of the 20th century. His most significant building is the
Bauhaus Building at Dessau, constructed in 1925-26.
Gropius was a second generation modernist and a contemporary of his fellow German architect
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, both of whom were architecture students of Peter Behrens from 190810.
In 1919 Walter Gropius established the Bauhaus, which became the most famous and influential
design school of the 20th century. The creation of the Bauhaus was an extension of the Deutscher
Werkbund, a group of German architects, designers and industrialists who sought to merge artistic
design and creation with industrial mass-production to produce affordable, high quality, machinemade products and appliances. Watch this short video of the context of the Bauhaus.
In 1928 Gropius resigned as director of the Bauhaus and in 1937 he emigrated to the United States
(Mies van der Rohe, the third and last Bauhaus director, had already emigrated there in 1933 after
the Nazi’s closed the Bauhaus.) Gropius lectured at Harvard University in Cambridge Massachusetts
and he later established The Architects Collaborative (TAC), a major architectural firm, one of their
significant buildings being the former Pan Am Building, (now the MetLife Building) 1958-63,
(recently voted by New Yorkers as the building they most wanted demolished!)
Gropius always adopted a collaborative approach to design. While studying under Peter Behrens he
met Adolf Meyer with whom he worked on the design and construction of their first significant
building, the Fagus Shoe-last Factory, 1911-13, and at the Bauhaus. He employed the most radical
and innovative artist-designers to staff the Bauhaus, including Marcel Breuer who he continued
working with in the United States.
Social context:

Context continued…
“Together let us desire, conceive, and create the new [building] of the future, which will
embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will one day rise
toward heaven from the hands of a million workers.”
This statement by Gropius indicates his concern for the Gesamtkunstwerk, the building
stylistically unified with all its furnishings and fixtures. It also reveals the influence of the
Dutch De Stijl movement which sought to unite the visual arts of architecture, painting and
sculpture into one seamless environment. This concept, derived from William Morris and
the English Arts and Crafts movement, and reflected in the more recent organic
architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, was embraced by Gropius, but with an industrial
aesthetic and means of production in mind.


Walter Gropius embraced the philosophy of his teacher Peter Behrens (and that of other
members of the Deutscher Werkbund) to affect a change in the German social structure
from a class-divided society to an industrially-based, egalitarian mass society. This is
evident in the types of buildings that Gropius chose to design; buildings for the masses, for
the workers: factories, schools, apartment blocks, and commercial buildings. This rather
left-wing socialist philosophy eventually led to the closure of Gropius’ Bauhaus by the
Nazi’s in 1933. Bauhaus ideas were however embraced by communist Russia and the
commercial, mass-production economy of American.
Like Peter Behrens before him, Gropius’ wanted to reconcile artistic design with modern
materials and industrial methods of production. He wanted to create well-designed, useful,
everyday objects and appliances that were accessible and affordable for the masses. This
required mass-production, which in turn necessitated objects be made, at least in part, of
industrial materials and standardised components. Standardisation became a design issue
at this time because it limited the freedom and scope of artist-designers, and not all
Bauhaus creations made it to the consumer mass market.
Two significant Gropius buildings.
The Fagus Shoe-last Factory,
Alfeld, Germany, 1911-13
The Bauhaus Building,
Dessau, Germany, 1925-26
Stylistic features of the Fagus Factory
This building, built only a few years
after Behrens’ AEG Turbine Factory,
has been cited as marking the
beginning of 20th century architecture.
The skeletal frame enables the walls
to become transparent screens to
admit sun, air and light for workers.
A clear expression of industrial
materials: steel, brick, plate glass.
Monumental rectangular form,
clean lines, standardised elements,
no ornament, a machine aesthetic.
The corner stairwell exploits the
structural potential of reinforced
concrete. The cantilevered stairs and
landings hang freely in space and are
screened by a structurally independent
transparent skin of glass.
Context of the Fagus Factory
Although the skeletal nature of this building’s structure had already been pioneered by
earlier modernists, it is the architectural expression of this building’s structure that is
significant.
Identify stylistic differences between the structural elements and the wall plains of these
three progressive buildings connected with Walter Gropius.
Peter Behrens,
Walter Gropius,
Walter Gropius,
AEG Turbine Factory,
Fagus Shoe Factory,
Bauhaus Workshops,
1908.
1911-13.
1926.
Stylistic features of the Bauhaus Building
■ metal frames
■ asymmetrical composition ■ horizontal windows
■ flat roofs
■ transparency
■ internal skeletal structures ■ cantilevered elements
■ white walls
■ open, fluid space ■ glass ‘curtain’ walls
■ windows flush with wall plane
■ functionalist, purist, industrial, machine aesthetic ■ standardised, modular components
■ lightweight, floating effect ■ exposed, utilitarian fixtures Observe other stylistic features here and here
Form and function in the Bauhaus Building
Communal area
Workshop wing
1 story plus basement, 3 stories plus basement, contains printing,
houses divisible dining dying, sculpture, carpentry, weaving, mural,
metal workshops, exhibition spaces.
and theatre space.
Accommodation
5 stories + basement,
28 student apartments
with kitchenettes,
gymnasium, laundry,
lockers, bathrooms.
Technical School
3 stories plus basement,
houses classrooms, library,
administrative offices.
The bridge
2 stories raised on stilts,
lower level contains masters
offices, upper level houses
the architecture department.
What was the Bauhaus?
Watch this 3-part video about the Bauhaus (Part One, Part Two, Part Three)
From the video research answers to these key questions about the Bauhaus:
Part One:
1.
What did Gropius establish in the southern German city of Weimar in 1919?
2.
What was the aim of the Bauhaus?
3.
List EIGHT different artistic disciplines taught at the Bauhaus.
4.
Give TWO reasons why the Bauhaus moved to Dessau in 1926.
5.
a) What aspect of art did Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee teach?
b) What artistic discipline did Mahology Nagy teach?
6.
List FIVE different functions of the Bauhaus complex expressed by the building’s design and
asymmetrical composition.
Part Two:
7.
State TWO ways Gropius gave prominence to the architecture workshop, the most important
workshop of the Bauhaus.
8.
Describe the visual effect, the structure and functional issues of the glass curtain wall of the
studio workshop wing of the Bauhaus.
9.
State TWO industrial influences acknowledged by Gropius’ at this time.
10.
How was the Bauhaus building designed so that “movement, encounters and confrontation
between students, areas and disciplines” was achieved?
Part Three:
11.
What were the flat roofs used for?
12.
List THREE interior features (or fixtures) that emphasise the functional aesthetics of the
Bauhaus building.
13.
How was colour used in a functional way in the Bauhaus complex?
14.
Where did the Bauhaus ‘masters’ live and how did some of them react to their supposedly
functional villas?
Examples of Bauhaus design
Marcel Breuer, Wassily Chair, 1923
Joost Schmidt, Bauhaus
Exhibition poster, 1923
El Lissitzky, typography, 1924
Wilhelm Wagenfeld, lamp, 1924
Marianne Brundt, teapot, 1924
Mies van der Rohe, D42 Armchair, 1927
.
The Gropius House,
Lincoln, Massachusetts, 1938
The Gropius’ wanted their American home to reflect its surroundings and traveled around New
England studying its vernacular architecture. In designing the house, Gropius combined traditional
elements of New England architecture such as clapboard, brick, and fieldstone, with new, innovative
materials, such as glass block, acoustical plaster, and chromed banisters, along with the latest
technology in fixtures.
Article from the Washington Post
Gropius carefully sited the house to complement its site on a rise overlooking an apple orchard and
fields. The house was built with economy in mind. The screened porch and terraces extend the
living spaces outdoors, it is sited for maximum ventilation and passive solar heating, and all fixtures
and building supplies were factory-made items readily available in the United States. Using the
Bauhaus design approach the house utilizes standard materials and products. The result is a
regionally inspired house that employs the philosophy and goals of the modern movement.
The Gropius House, Lincoln, Massachusetts, 1938
Visit the house here to answer these questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
State THREE parts of the house that use
materials traditional to New England buildings.
State THREE parts of the house that use new,
industrial materials of the time.
Give FIVE features of the house that are
typical of International Style buildings?
Along with the Bauhaus at Dessau, this house
is an excellent example of the functionalist architecture of
‘high modernism’, the so-called International Style.
List SEVEN particularly functional features of this house.
How does Gropius use light and shadow to enliven the house?
This house brings a European modernist style into an
American cultural context. State TWO means Gropius used to
adapt this house to its American cultural context.
Who designed much of the furniture for the house and how is
he connected with Gropius?
List THREE Bauhaus items Gropius placed in the house.