Walter Gropius was a pioneering German architect and founder of the influential Bauhaus school. He studied architecture in Munich and Berlin before working under Peter Behrens. In 1919, Gropius established the Bauhaus school in Weimar, which emphasized merging art, craft, and technology. Some of his notable early works include the Fagus Factory and the Bauhaus building. In the 1930s, Gropius emigrated to the UK and then US due to the rise of Nazis. He taught at Harvard and established an influential architecture firm. Gropius was a leading modernist and his designs, including his own home, helped introduce European modernism to America.

1. HISTORY OF
ARCHITECTURE

2. 1883-1969

3. THE CHRONOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF
GROPIUS’ ARCHITECTURE
Chronological context in Architecture
- Modernism to Postmodernism -
1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s
First generation
modernists
Second generation
modernists
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

4. About him
 Born in Berlin, his father was an architect.
 Educated in private elementary school.
 1903 he left school and went to the Technical University
in Munich to study architecture.
 1904-1905 he served in the military, then went back to
school.
 1907 he left school without completion and went back to
Berlin because of the death of his brother.
 1907-1910 he worked for Peter Brehens, a leading
figure in the Werkbund Movement. He left Brehens
when he thought he had learned all he could from him
and started his own practice.

5.  1919 he founded the Bauhaus school.
 1925 he moved with the Bauhaus to Dessau.
 1928 he left the Bauhaus and went to Berlin to start his own practice.
 1934 moved to England and worked with Maxwell Fry, one of the only
Modernist architects who were Britain. He pioneered Modernist buildings in
Third World countries. Gropius worked with him for three years. 1937
began professorship of architecture at Harvard University where he met
Marcel Breuer.
 1945 joined a group of young architects known as The Architectural
Collaborative (TAC).
 He was an advocate of industrialized building carrying with it a belief in
teamwork and an acceptance of standardization and prefabrication.
 Invented the screen wall system that utilized a structural steel frame to
support the floors and allowed the external glass wall to continue without

6. GEOGRAPHICAL CONTEXT:
Walter Gropius was a German designer and architect whose teac
and practice were based originally in Berlin and Dessau, German
He migrated to the USA in 1937 and taught and practiced in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Dessa
u
Cambridge

7. 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.
 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 1908-10.
 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, machine-made products and
appliances.

8.  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.

9. HIS PHYLOSOPHY:

10. HIS PHYLOSOPHY:

11. TWO SIGNIFICANT GROPIUS
BUILDINGS.
The Fagus Shoe-last Factory,
Alfeld, Germany, 1911-13
The Bauhaus Building,
Dessau, Germany, 1925-26

12. FEATURES OF THE FAGUS FACTORY:
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.

13.  GLASS SCREEN WAS USED ALL
OVER THE WALLS TO HAVE
PROPER VIEW FROM INSIDE
 WALLS ARE NO LONGER
SUPPORTERS OF THE BUILDING
BUT SIMPLE CURTAIN WALL
PROJECTING AGAINST
WEATHER.
 IT WAS DOMINATION OF VOIDS
OVER SOLIDS.
 GLASS AND WALLS ARE JOINED
CLEANLY AT CORNERS.

16. ELEVATIO
N
PLAN

17. PLAN OF MAIN OFFICE BUILDING

18. THE BAUHAUS SCHOOL IN
DESSAU
(1925 TO 1926)

19. ■ metal frames ■ asymmetrical composition ■ horizontal windows ■ flat roofs
■ transparency ■ internal skeletal structures ■ cantilevered elements ■ white walls
■ open, fluid space
■ functionalist, purist, industrial, machine aesthetic ■ standardised, modular components
■ lightweight, floating effect ■ exposed, utilitarian fixtures
STYLISTIC FEATURES OF BAUHAUS BUILDING:

20. ■ glass ‘curtain’ walls
■ windows flush with wall plane

21. Accommodation
5 stories + basement,
28 student apartments
with kitchenettes,
gymnasium, laundry,
lockers, bathrooms.
Communal area
1 story plus basement,
houses divisible dining
and theatre space.
The bridge
2 stories raised on stilts,
lower level contains masters
offices, upper level houses
the architecture department.
Workshop wing
3 stories plus basement, contains printing,
dying, sculpture, carpentry, weaving, mural,
metal workshops, exhibition spaces.
Technical School
3 stories plus basement,
houses classrooms,
library,
administrative offices.
FORM AND FUNCTION :

22. GROPIUS HOUSE, LINCOLN ,
MA
(1937)

24. LIVING ROOM-
Contains a fireplace for its practical value as well as the
psychological effect an open fire has on making you feel safe and
comfortable.
The top shelf of the bookcase contains only books written by
Gropius or ones he had collaborated on, so he would have copies
on hand to sign and give to his guests.

25. Dining room –
While the Gropius’s
entertained in the
living room, a maid
would be behind the
drape preparing the
dining room for
dinner. Using
museum lighting,
Walter created a
dramatic scene with
the light illuminating
just to the edge of
the table . The guest
would be in
darkness while the
crystal and
tableware sparkled.

26. FRONT ENTRY –
• Curved staircase
faces away from
the entry
signifying the
upstairs as a
private place.
• By removing the
closet door, the
closet is
incorporated as a
design element,
as a way to
introduce color
and texture that
would change
with the seasons.
• Floor is a cork tile
which is sound
absorbing,
durable,
functional, and

27. EXAMPLES OF BAUHAUS DESIGN
.
Joost Schmidt, Bauhaus
Exhibition poster, 1923
El Lissitzky, typography, 1924
Wilhelm Wagenfeld, lamp, 1924
Marianne Brundt, teapot, 1924
Marcel Breuer, Wassily Chair, 1923
Mies van der Rohe, D42 Armchair, 1927

28. HIS INTERESTS:

29. HIS INTERESTS:

30. HIS INTERESTS:

31. HIS INTERESTS:

32. HIS INTERESTS:

33. FAMOUS QUOTES:

34. REFERENCES:
 The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.
“Gropius House”. www.spnea.org.
 20th Century Desinger Data Publisher. “Marcel Breuer”.
www.r20thcentury.com /bios/designers.
cfm?article_id=39.
 BBC Education. “Walter Gropius”.
www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/centurions/gropius/gropbiog.ht
ml.

35. He first came to the attention of American architectsafter he founded the
renowned Bauhaus Design School (1919-33) in Weimar. The school became
synonymous with functional design and noted for itsavant-garde art and architecture.
Gropius's work was also featured in the "International Exhibition of Modern Architecture"
(1932), New York, and identified - along with J.J.P Oud, Mies van der Rohe, Erich
Mendelsohn, Alvar Aalto, and Richard Neutra - as a leading exponent of the Internationa
Style of modern architecture. Like his fellow modernists, Gropius's main concern was to
create "modern" buildings for "modern man": meaning, a functional type of building,
without any old fashioned historical decoration with Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance
or Neoclassical motifs. He therefore designed geometric-style buildings, devoid of all
ornamentation, but with creative elements inserted at key points in otherwise repetitive
designs. Based on his teaching success at the Bauhaus school, and the innovative
quality of his own designs - including the Fagus Factory (1911-25) in Alfeld on the Leine,
his Pavilion for the Werkbund Exhibition at Cologne in 1914, and the Bauhaus Complex
(1925) at Dessau - he was invited to come to Harvard University to head the Graduate
School of Design just before World War II. In America, he continued both his academic
and practicing career, in which he was a leading architect for a full half century before
his death in 1969. An important contributor to American art of the mid-20th century, his
famous designs, most of which were executed in partnership with other architects,
included: Gropius House, Massachusetts (1937); Harvard Graduate Center (1949-50);
the Pan Am Building, New York (1958-63); and John F. Kennedy Federal Office Building,
Boston (1963-66). Until his late 30s, he was married to Alma Mahler (1879–1964),

36.  Gropius studied architecture at technical colleges in Munich (1903-4) and Berlin (1905-7),
 In 1908, after studying architecture in Munich and Berlin for four semesters, Gropius joined
the office of the renowned architect and industrial designer Peter Behrens
 he toured Italy, Spain and England for a year, before joining the architectural office of Peter
Behrens (1868-1940), one of the first members of the modernist school, and a founder of
the Deutscher werkbund (1907-33).
 Gropius's fellow employees, were Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Dietrich Marcks and Le
Corbusier.
 In 1910, Gropius left to set up his own firm in Berlin, in partnership with Adolf Meyer (1881-
1929).
 Two of their most successful commissions included the Fagus Werk (1911-13), a factory in
Alfeld on the Leine in Germany, whose design was strongly influenced by Peter Behrens's
AEG Turbine factory;
and the model factory building for the German Labour League
Exhibition (1914) in Cologne, influenced, it is said, by the
American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), whose
revolutionary designs later impressed several Bauhaus
instructors.
 In 1913, he published an article on "The Development of Industrial Buildings,"
featuring photos of factories and grain elevators in North America, which had a
significant influence on other European modernists, like Le Corbusier and
AEG Turbine factory;

37.  In 1934, Gropius emigrated to England and then on to the USA in
1937. He worked there as a professor for architecture at the
Graduate School of Design of Harvard University. In 1938, he
organised the exhibition Bauhaus 1919–1928 at the Museum of
Modern Art in New York together with Herbert Bayer.
 From 1938 to 1941, Gropius maintained an office partnership
with Marcel Breuer. He became an American citizen in 1944.
 In 1959, the American Institute of Architects awarded its Gold Medal
to Gropius, and in 1964 gave its Architectural Firm Award to The
Architects Collaborative.
 In 1969, gropius died.
 We want to create the purely organic building, boldly
emanating its inner laws, free of untruths or ornamentation.”
(Walter Gropius)

38.  The Deutscher Werkbund (German Association of Craftsmen) is
a German association of artists, architects, designers, and industrialists,
established in 1907.
 The Werkbund became an important element in the development of modern
architecture and industrial design, particularly in the later creation of
the Bauhaus school of design.
 Its initial purpose was to establish a partnership of product manufacturers
with design professionals to improve the competitiveness of German
companies in global markets.
 The Werkbund was less an artistic movement than a state-sponsored effort
to integrate traditional crafts and industrial mass-production techniques, to
put Germany on a competitive footing with England and the United States.

39.  In 1919, after serving as an officer during the war, he succeeded the BelgianArt
Noveau architect Henry van de Velde (1863-1957) as the head of the Grand-Ducal Saxon
School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar, which Gropius rapidly transformed into the world renowned
Bauhaus, attracting outstanding teachers like Paul Klee (1879-1940), Johannes Itten (1888-
1967), Josef Albers (1888-1976), Herbert Bayer (1900-85), Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946),
Otto Bartning (1883-1959), El Lissitzsky (1890-1941) and Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944). The
school was associated with a number of modernist design movements in Europe, including De
Stijl and Elementarism(Van Doesburg), Neo-Plasticism (Mondrian)
and Constructivism (Lissitzky). For comprehensive details, see: Bauhaus Design School.
 In 1923, Gropius designed his famous "door handles", see today as an icon of 20th-century
design and often cited as one of the most influential items ofapplied art produced by Bauhaus.
(See also: Crafts: History & Types.) Also, when the Bauhaus relocated from Weimar to Dessau,
Gropius himself designed and built the school building and faculty housing. It is probably his
best known design. In addition, during the period 1926-1932, he completed several large-scale
housing designs in Berlin, Karlsruhe and Dessau. In 1929-30, he designed part of a housing
colony in Berlin-Siemensstadt.
 Emigrates to the United States
 In 1934, following the enforced closure of the Bauhaus by the Nazis, the previous year, Gropius
discreetly left Germany, via Italy, for exile in England, where he worked as part of the Isokon
design group until 1937, when he emigrated to America. He promptly built his own house -
Gropius House - in Lincoln, Massachusetts, which soon became famous as an early example of
International Modernism, albeit one which sensibly included a number of New England
architectural features. In 1938 he took up his post as Head of the Graduate School of Design at
Harvard University, which he kept until his retirement in 1952: his Bauhaus protege Marcel
Breuer also joined the faculty.
 Note: Another ex-Bauhaus designer who emigrated to America was Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895-
1946), who founded the short-lived New Bauhaus School (1937-8) in Chicago, before setting up
his own school which he ran until his death.
 In 1944, Gropius became a citizen of the United States, and in 1945, together with six of of his
ex-pupils from Harvard, set up The Architects' Collaborative(TAC), based in Cambridge. Other
founder members included Jean B. Fletcher, Norman C. Fletcher, Sarah P. Harkness, John C.
Harkness, Louis A. MacMillen, Robert S. MacMillan, and Benjamin C. Thompson. TAC would