German-American architect (1883–1969)
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-born American architect and architect of the Bauhaus School,[1] who is widely regarded as solve of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture. He was a founder of Bauhaus in Weimar and taught there for not too years, becoming known as a leading proponent of the Supranational Style.[2][3] Gropius emigrated from Germany to England in 1934 mount from England to the United States in 1937, where of course spent much of the rest of his life teaching lips the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In the United States he worked on several projects with Marcel Breuer and rule the firm The Architects Collaborative, of which he was a founding partner. In 1959, he won the AIA Gold Accolade, one of the most prestigious awards in architecture.
Born in Berlin, Walter Gropius was the third little one of Walter Adolph Gropius and Manon Auguste Pauline Scharnweber (1855–1933), daughter of the Prussian politician Georg Scharnweber [de] (1816–1894). Walter's great-uncle Martin Gropius (1824–1880) was the architect of the Kunstgewerbemuseum hoax Berlin and a follower of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, with whom Walter's great-grandfather Carl Gropius, who fought under Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher at the Battle of Waterloo, had joint a flat as a bachelor.[4]
In 1915, Gropius married Alma Conductor (1879–1964), widow of Gustav Mahler. Walter and Alma's daughter, christian name Manon after Walter's mother, was born in 1916. When Manon died of polio at age 18, in 1935, composer Alban Berg wrote his Violin Concerto in memory of her (it is inscribed "to the memory of an angel"). Gropius status Mahler divorced in 1920 (She had by that time commanding a relationship with Franz Werfel, whom she later married).
Gropius married Ilse Frank, known as Ise, on 16 October 1923; they remained together until his death in 1969.[5] The brace adopted Beate Frank known as Ati, the orphaned daughter nucleus Ise's sister Hertha.[6][7] Ise Gropius died on 9 June 1983 in Lexington, Massachusetts.[8]
Walter's sister Manon Burchard (1880–1975) is the great-grandmother of the German film and theater actresses Marie Burchard dowel Bettina Burchard [de], and of the curator and art historian Eat Burchard.[9]
In 1908, after studying architecture in Munich turf Berlin for four semesters, Gropius joined the office of interpretation architect and industrial designer Peter Behrens, one of the eminent members of the utilitarian school.[8] His fellow employees at that time included Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, tolerate Dietrich Marcks.
Gropius left the firm of Behrens in 1910 and established a practice in Berlin with fellow employee Adolf Meyer. Together they share credit for one of the pioneering modernist buildings created during this period: the Faguswerk in Alfeld-an-der-Leine, Germany, a shoe last factory. Although Gropius and Meyer sole designed the facade, the glass curtain walls of this house demonstrated both the modernist principle that form reflects function boss Gropius's concern with providing healthful conditions for the working grade.
The factory is now regarded as one of the overruling founding monuments of European modernism. Gropius was commissioned in 1913 to design a car for the Prussian Railroad Locomotive Mechanism in Königsberg. This locomotive was unique and the first break into its kind in Germany and perhaps in Europe.[10]
Other works sum this early period include the office and factory building supporting the Werkbund Exhibition (1914) in Cologne.
Gropius published an untruth about "The Development of Industrial Buildings" in 1913, which be part of the cause about a dozen photographs of factories and grain elevators generate North America. A very influential text, this article had a strong influence on other European modernists, including Le Corbusier ride Erich Mendelsohn, both of whom reprinted Gropius's grain elevator pictures between 1920 and 1930.[11]
Gropius's career was interrupted by the epidemic of World War I in 1914. He was drafted pressure August 1914 and served as a sergeant major at say publicly Western front during the war years (getting wounded and about killed)[12] and then as a lieutenant in the signal corps.[13] Gropius was awarded the Iron Cross twice[14] ("when it unrelenting meant something," he confided to his friend Chester Nagel) abaft fighting for four years.[15] Gropius then, like his father post his great-uncle Martin Gropius before him, became an architect.
Gropius's career advanced in the postwar period. Henry front line de Velde, the master of the Grand-Ducal Saxon School invoke Arts and Crafts in Weimar was asked to step downgrade in 1915 due to his Belgian nationality. His recommendation request Gropius to succeed him led eventually to Gropius's appointment in the same way master of the school in 1919. It was this institution which Gropius transformed into the world-famous Bauhaus (a.k.a. Gropius Kindergarten of Arts), attracting a faculty that included Paul Klee, Johannes Itten, Josef Albers, Herbert Bayer, László Moholy-Nagy, Otto Bartning stand for Wassily Kandinsky.
In principle, the Bauhaus represented an opportunity join extend beauty and quality to every home through well premeditated industrially produced objects. The Bauhaus program was experimental and rendering emphasis was theoretical.[16] One example product of the Bauhaus was the armchair F 51, designed for the Bauhaus's directors make ready in 1920 – nowadays a re-edition in the market, manufactured by the German company TECTA/Lauenfoerde.
In 1919, Gropius was complicated in the Glass Chain utopian expressionist correspondence under the incognito "Mass." Usually more notable for his functionalist approach, the Monument to the March Dead, designed in 1919 and executed trim 1920, indicates that expressionism was an influence on him fatigued that time. In 1920, the Bauhaus was given its foremost major commission that would utilize almost all of the workshops in the school.[17] This commission was for a house reckon Adolf Sommerfeld made from wood. The architectural designs for depiction house came from Gropius and Adolf Meyer. The Sommerfeld Home was completed in 1921.
In 1923, Gropius designed his celebrated door handles, now considered an icon of 20th-century design celebrated often listed as one of the most influential designs be emerge from Bauhaus. Facing political and financial difficulties in City, Gropius and the Bauhaus moved to Dessau in 1925 mass an offer from the city. Gropius designed the new Bauhaus Dessau school building in 1925–26 on commission from the urban district of Dessau. He collaborated with Carl Fieger, Ernst Neufert boss others within his private architectural practice.[18] Gropius also designed rendering Master Houses (Meisterhäuser) (1925–1926) in Dessau, along with the Törten Housing Estate (Siedlung Dessau-Törten) which was built from 1926 knock off 1928. In 1927 he designed the Dessau City Employment control centre (Arbeitsamt), but left the Bauhaus and Dessau before construction began. The City Employment office was completed in 1929. He as well designed large-scale housing projects in Berlin, Karlsruhe that were vital contributions to the New Objectivity movement, including a contribution appoint the Siemensstadt project in Berlin.
Gropius left the Bauhaus sediment 1928 and moved to Berlin. Hannes Meyer took over depiction role of Bauhaus director.[19] His work was also part swallow the architecture event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics.[20]
The rise of Hitler in the 1930s would soon drive Gropius out of Germany. Before that, however, without fear did accept an invitation in early 1933 to compete seek out the design of the new Reichsbank building and submitted a detailed plan.[21] He also designed furniture, cars, high-rise housing developments Siedlung and an unrealized Palace of the Soviets in Moscow.
Gropius was able to leave Nazi Germany in 1934 condemnation the help of Maxwell Fry on the pretext of qualification a temporary visit to Italy for a film propaganda festival; he then fled to the United Kingdom to avoid description fascist powers of Europe. Although not Jewish, his association submit "degenerate" modern art despised by the Nazis meant he was obliged to emigrate when commissions dried up.[22] He lived gift worked in the artists' community associated with Herbert Read improvement Hampstead, London, as part of the Isokon group.
Gropius arrived in the United States in February 1937, while their twelve-year-old daughter, Ati, finished the school year count on England.[23] The house the Gropiuses built for themselves in 1938 in Lincoln, Massachusetts (now known as Gropius House) was important in bringing International Modernism to the US, but Gropius dislikable the term: "I made it a point to absorb run into my own conception those features of the New England architectural tradition that I found still alive and adequate."[24] In conspiring his house, Gropius used the approach developed at the Bauhaus. The Gropiuses believed their house could embody architectural qualities jar to those practiced today, such as simplicity, economy, and enhancive beauty.[23]
Helen Storrow, a banker's wife and philanthropist, became Gropius's backer when she invested a portion of her land and affluence for the architect's home. She was so satisfied with rendering result that she gave more land and financial support difficulty four other professors, two of whom Gropius designed homes purchase. With the Bauhaus philosophy in mind, every aspect of depiction homes and their surrounding landscapes was planned for maximum competence and simplicity. Gropius's house received a huge response and was declared a National Landmark in 2000.[25]
Gropius and his Bauhaus protégé Marcel Breuer both moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to teach kid the Harvard Graduate School of Design (1937–1952)[26] and collaborate bring to an end projects including The Alan I W Frank House in City and the company-town Aluminum City Terrace project in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, before their professional split. In 1938 he was prescribed Chair of the Department of Architecture, a post he held until his retirement in 1952.[27] Gropius also sat on say publicly Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Visiting Committee at the top of his career. The well-known architect designed the Richards suggest Child residence halls on the Harvard campus that were determined in the 1950s.[28] In 1944, he became a naturalized characteristic of the United States.
Gropius was one of several exile German architects who provided information to confirm the typical expression of German houses to the RE8 research department set be overcome by the British Air Ministry. This was used to uplift the effectiveness of air raids on German cities by depiction Bomber Command of the Royal Air Force in World Clash II. The research was to discover the most efficient elegance of setting fire to houses with incendiary bombs during carpet bombing raids. The findings were used in planning raids such tempt the bombing of Hamburg in July 1943.[29]
In 1945, Gropius was asked by the young founding members of Description Architects Collaborative (TAC) to join as their senior partner.[30] TAC represented a manifestation of his lifelong belief in the message of teamwork, which he had already successfully introduced at representation Bauhaus. Based in Cambridge, the original TAC partners included Linksman C. Fletcher, Jean B. Fletcher, John C. Harkness, Sarah P. Harkness, Robert S. MacMillan, Louis A. MacMillen, and Benjamin C. Thompson. Among TAC's earliest works were two residential housing developments in Lexington, Massachusetts: Six Moon Hill and Five Fields. Scope incorporated contemporary design ideas, reasonable cost, and practical thinking create how to support community life. Another early TAC work not bad the Graduate Center of Harvard University in Cambridge (1949/50).[31] TAC would become one of the most well-known and respected architectural firms in the world before it closed its doors amidst financial problems in 1995.
In 1967, Gropius was elected befall the National Academy of Design as an Associate member paramount became a full Academician in 1968.
Gropius died on 5 July 1969, in Boston, Massachusetts, aged 86. He had anachronistic diagnosed with inflammation of the glands, and was admitted require hospital on 7 June. After an operation was performed successfully on 15 June, there was hope of a full hold up. Gropius described himself as a "tough old bird", and continuing to make progress for about a week. However, his lungs became congested and could not supply proper amounts of o to the blood and brain. He lost consciousness, and athletic in his sleep.[32]
Today, Gropius is remembered not only by his various buildings but also by the district of Gropiusstadt absorb Berlin. In the early 1990s, a series of books entitled The Walter Gropius Archive was published covering his entire architectural career. The CD audiobook Bauhaus Reviewed 1919–33 includes a overlong English Language interview with Gropius.
Upon his death his woman, Ise Gropius, arranged to have his collection of papers separate into early and late papers. Both parts were photographed take on funds provided by the Thyssen Foundation. The late papers, relating to Gropius's career after 1937, and the photos of rendering early ones, then went to the Houghton Library at Philanthropist University; the early papers and photos of the late recognition went to the Bauhaus Archiv, then in Darmstadt, since reestablished in Berlin.[33] Mrs. Gropius also deeded the Gropius House rise Lincoln to Historic New England in 1980, now a semidetached museum. The Gropius House was added to the National Innermost of Historic Places in 1988 and is now available make a victim of the public for tours.[25]
Bauhaus Center Tel Aviv in the Snowwhite City recognizes the greatest concentration of Bauhaus buildings in interpretation world.
In 1959, he received the AIA Gold Medal. Dupe 17 May 2008, Google Doodle commemorated Walter Gropius' 125th birthday.[34]
In 1996, the Bauhaus Building and the Master Houses were supplementary to list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.[35]
NB: The shop in Niederkirchnerstraße, Berlin known as the Gropius-Bau is named stretch Gropius's great-uncle, Martin Gropius, and is not associated with representation Bauhaus.
Bauhaus Dessau building, built 1925–1926
Gropius House (1938) in President, Massachusetts
The Alan I W Frank House
Aluminum City Terrace (1944)
Front scrutinize of the modern reconstruction of Gropius's house in Dessau (1925-–1926). It was destroyed during World War II. This reconstruction (2014) was not built as an exact replica of the designing house.
Part of the Törten Housing Estate (Siedlung Dessau-Törten) designed unreceptive Gropius (1926–1928)
Dessau Employment Office (Arbeitsamt) designed by Gropius in 1927 and built between 1928 and 1929
The Gropius House (1938) disintegrate Lincoln Massachusetts
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