Walter Gropius

Walter Gropius (1883-1969) was born in Berlin, Germany. Gropius attended the Technische Hochschule in Berlin, and later in life he continued studying architecture in Munich. He also got an excellent training by Peter Behrens (a famous architect who also trained Le Corbusier).

After several building projects, which made Gropius famous, he became the director of the Grand Ducal Art School at Weimar. He later fused that school together with the Dekorative Arts School; the new state-owned school was named the Bauhaus. A few years later the new school of art had to relocate to Dessau (because of no future financial support from the city of Weimar). Gropius designed the new school and dorm building; now an architectural landmark.

Naturally Gropius became the director and also a professor at the Bauhaus. He did not want the students to copy his ideas; he encouraged the students to do their own work instead. The central idea of the Bauhaus school of art was to teach the students simple, functional and geometrical pure design.

However, in 1928 Gropius resigned his leader position at the Bauhaus, and he returned to Berlin where he started his own private independent architectural practice. In 1934 he emigrated to London, Great Britain, where he founded a partnership with Maxwell Fry; their partnership lasted for three years. In 1937 he moved to the U.S. where he was the dean of the school of Architecture at Harvard University.

During Gropius' lifetime he had the opportunity to design many famous buildings. For example, he desigend the Hall of Machinery at the Werkbund Exposition in Cologne, the Bauhaus in Dessau and the state theater at Jena. He also designed the Fagus Shoe Factory. Gropius has definitely been one of the most influential architects in the twentieth century.