Walter Gropius

Walter Gropius , 1883-1969, German-American architect, one of the leaders of modern functional architecture. In Germany his Fagus factory buildings (1910-11) at Alfeld, with their glass walls, metal spandrels, and discerning use of purely industrial features, were among the most advanced works in Europe. After World War I, Gropius became (1918) director of the Weimar School of Art, reorganizing it as the Bauhaus . It was moved in 1925 to Dessau. The complete set of new buildings for it, which Gropius designed (1926), remains one of his finest achievements. He built the Staattheater at Jena (1923), some experimental houses at Stuttgart (1927), and designed residences, workers' dwellings, and industrial buildings. Driven out by the Nazis, he practiced (1934-37) in London with Maxwell Fry and in 1937 emigrated to America, where he headed the school of architecture at Harvard until 1952. His influence on the dissemination of functional architectural theory and the rise of the International style was immense. Practicing his principles of cooperative design, Gropius worked with a group of young architects on the design of the Harvard graduate center. He continued his architectural activity with this group, the Architects Collaborative (TAC), in such works as the U.S. embassy at Athens, the Univ. of Baghdad (1961), and the Grand Central City building, New York City (1963). His writings include The New Architecture and the Bauhaus (tr. 1935) and Scope of World Architecture (1955).

Bibliography: See studies by S. Giedion (1954), J. M. Fitch (1960), and M. Franciscono (1971).

Gropius, Walter (1883–1969) German-US architect, founder of the Bauhaus (1919–28). Gropius transformed the Weimar School of Art into the Bauhaus, which relocated to his newly designed buildings at Dessau in 1926. He fled Germany in 1934, and headed the Harvard School of Architecture (1937–52). Gropius pioneered functional design and the International style in particular. The results of his cooperative, group-work design methods can be seen in the Harvard Graduate Center (1949) and the US Embassy, Athens (1960).

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Gropius, Walter (b Berlin, 18 May 1883; d Boston, 5 July 1969). German-born architect, designer, and teacher who became an American citizen in 1944. In 1919 he founded the Bauhaus, of which he was principal until 1928, when he resumed his architectural practice in Berlin. In 1934, after the Nazis had come to power, he left Germany for England, where he practised in partnership with the British architect Maxwell Fry. In 1937 he settled in the USA, where he taught at Harvard until 1951. He remained active until the end of his life and had an exceptional list of notable buildings to his credit. Although Gropius's practical work was in the field of architecture, his influence upon modernist trends in all the visual arts has probably not been exceeded by that of any other man. Nowhere else have so many major artists of outstanding originality been brought into collaboration as those whom Gropius gathered at the Bauhaus.