Walter Gropius

Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (1883-1969) was a German-American architect and founder of the Bauhaus School, widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture. Born to wealthy Berlin parents in 1883, he was the son of an architect and followed in the family tradition, with his great-uncle Martin (1824-1880) also being a notable architect. Gropius studied architecture at technical institutes in Munich (1903-04) and Berlin-Charlottenburg (1905-07) but dropped out before finishing his degree. In 1908, he joined the office of architect and industrial designer Peter Behrens, one of the first members of the utilitarian school, where he worked alongside future architectural luminaries Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Dietrich Marcks. In 1910, Gropius left Behrens and established a practice in Berlin with Adolf Meyer. Together they designed the pioneering modernist Faguswerk factory in Alfeld-an-der-Leine (1910-1913), whose glass curtain walls demonstrated modernist principles and concern for worker conditions. His career was interrupted by World War I, where he served as a sergeant major at the Western front, was wounded, and received the Iron Cross twice. In 1919, Gropius was invited to head the new Weimar School of Applied Arts, which he rechristened the Bauhaus State School. He drafted the influential Bauhaus manifesto in 1919, emphasizing the unity of all arts and crafts with architecture as the ultimate goal. As Bauhaus director (1919-1928), he designed the iconic Bauhaus Dessau building (1925-26), the Master Houses, and the Törten Housing Estate. Unsympathetic to the Nazi regime, he and his second wife Ise Frank left Germany secretly in 1934 for England, then emigrated to the United States in 1937. He became professor of architecture at Harvard University in 1937, chairman of the department in 1938 (until 1952), and a naturalized US citizen in 1944. In 1946, he formed The Architects Collaborative (TAC) with six former Harvard pupils, designing the Harvard University Graduate Center among other projects. He won the prestigious AIA Gold Medal in 1959 and died in Boston in 1969 following a short illness.