Walter Adolph Georg Gropius May 18, 1883 Berlin, German Empire July 5, 1969 (aged 86) Died

Cambridge, Massachusetts Nationality German/American AIA Gold Medal (1959) Awards Goethe Prize (1961) Born Peter Behrens (19081910) Practice The Architects' Collaborative (1945 1969)

Walter Gropius, like his father and his great-uncle Martin Gropius before him, became an architect. He is regarded as one of the pioneering master of modern architecture. Grand-Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar, It was this academy which Gropius transformed into the world famous Bauhaus(1919-1932). With the help of the English architect Maxwell Fry, Gropius was able to leave Nazi Germany in 1934, on the pretext of making a temporary visit to Britain. He lived and worked in Britain, as part of the Isokon group with Fry and others and then, in 1937, moved on to the United States. The house he built for himself in Lincoln, Massachusetts, (now known as Gropius House) was influential in bringing International Modernism to the U.S. but Gropius disliked the term: "I made it a point to absorb into my own conception those features of the New England architectural tradition that I found still alive and adequate. In 1944, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In 1945, Gropius founded The Architects' Collaborative (TAC) based in Cambridge with a group of younger architects. The original partners included Norman C. Fletcher, Jean B. Fletcher, John C. Harkness, Sarah O Harkness, Robert S. MacMillan, Louis A. MacMillen, and Benjamin C. Thompson

Field walter Gropius worked

Bauhaus: Established in Weimar in the year 1919 as an art, design and architecture school. The goal of Bauhaus was to bring together art, handcrafts and architecture into one single synthesis of the arts. This guideline is rather strongly oriented on the arts and crafts movement however, Bauhaus opened itself for new technological possibilities, so that the way to industrial design was smoothed Cubism: . Cubism dissipated representation by using simple geometrisurfaces, above all cubes. By use of this process, forms became split up, so that cubism created a first form of abstraction. An important impulse for cubism was the art of Paul Czanne as well as his programmatic statement, "everything in art is formed of balls, cones and cylinders". Futurism: Similar to Cubism, Futurism was preoccupied with the decomposition of form. Futurist images seek to visualize a series of motions, using chronophotography, or multiple photographic exposures . Futurist artists developed a rapid, vibrant style that dismantled perspective and delineation so that color and shape could be expressed. Futurist sculpture tried to capture the motion and speed of the world of technology in a single object; figures are fragmented, as in Boccionis work, "Unique Forms of Continuity in Space". Historicism : Historicism, in the broadest sense, means the recourse to historical style, which was also utilized during the Renaissance Constructivism: . It concentrated on strictly geometric composition, and for this reason was non-representational. The constructive nature of their art lay in building a composition by means of simple geometric building blocks. Constructivism received important impulses from cubism and from the dynamic fragmentation of futurism, which also put together their compositions from geometricizing shapes.

Secession: , Secessionist art was also directed against the propagation of historical styles, and turned more towards stylized plant-like forms. Typical of the movement is an ornamental, linear graphic style exemplified by the curving lines and floral motif of Peter Behrens woodcut The Kiss Biedermeier: Biedermeier is carried over to painting and literature as well. In the cultivation of home decor, this style places simpler forms and fine materials with shiny, polished surfaces in opposition to the ostentatious Empire style. Photography: Photography is understood as an optical-technical process that enables copying and keeping pictures permanently. Photography itself also became an art medium, for example in Bauhaus. Art photography however was for a long time not considered as such. Henri Cartier-Bresson, himself a photographer and a painter, saw photography not as a form of art but rather as a craft: "Photography is a handcraft. Op-Art : Op-Art is short for "optical art", which is an art style that plays with the optical perception of the observer Pop Art : Pop Art is an abbreviation for popular art and represents a style that developed simultaneously. , pop art oriented itself strongly to advertising posters, consumer goods and other elements of life in a big city. Thus pop art wanted to permit items fit for the masses and popular objects to become art.

SELECTED BUILDINGS

19101911 the Fagus Factory, Alfeld an der Leine, Germany 1914 Office and Factory Buildings at the Werkbund Exhibition, 1914, Cologne, Germany 1921 Sommerfeld House, Berlin, Germany designed for Adolf Sommerfeld 1922 competition entry for the Chicago Tribune Tower competition 19251932 Bauhaus School and Faculty, Housin, Dessau, Germany 1936 Village College, Impington, Cambridge, England 1936 66 Old Church Street, Chelsea, London, England 1937 The Gropius House, Lincoln, Massachusetts, USA 1939 Waldenmark, Wrightstown Township, Pennsylvania (with Marcel Breuer) 19421944 Aluminum City Terrace housing project, New Kensington, Pennsylvania, USA 19491950 Harvard Graduate Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (The Architects' Collaborative)[6] 19451959 Michael Reese Hospital, Chicago, Illinois, USA - Master planned 37-acre (150,000 m2) site and led the design for at least 8 of the approx. 28 buildings.[citation needed] 19571960 University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq 19631966 John F. Kennedy Federal Office Building, Boston, Massachusetts, USA 1948 Peter Thacher Junior High School, 1957-1959 Dr. and Mrs. Carl Murchison House, Provincetown, Massachusetts, USA (The Architects' Collaborative) 19581963 Pan Am Building (now the Metlife Building), New York, with Pietro Belluschi and project architects Emery Roth & Sons 1957 Interbau Apartment blocks, Hansaviertel, Berlin, Germany, with The Architects' Collaborative and Wils Ebert 1960 Temple Oheb Shalom (Baltimore, Maryland) 1960 the Gropiusstadt building complex, Berlin, Germany 1961 The award-winning Wayland High School, Wayland, Massachusetts, USA (demolished 2012) 19591961 Embassy of the United States, Athens, Greece (The Architects' Collaborative and consulting architect Pericles A. Sakellarios) 1968 Glass Cathedral, Thomas Glassworks, Amberg 1967 69 Tower East, Shaker Heights, Ohio, this was Gropius' last major project.

Fagus Factory in Alfeld - UNESCO World Heritage Centre .Fagus Factory in Alfeld is a 10-building complex - began around 1910 to the design of Walter Gropius, which is a landmark in the development of modern architecture and industrial design. Serving all stages of manufacture, storage and dispatch of lasts used by the shoe industry, the complex, which is still operational today, is situated in Alfeld an der Leine in Lower Saxony. With its groundbreaking vast expanses of glass panels and functionalist aesthetics, the complex foreshadowed the work of the Bauhaus school and is a landmark in the development of architecture in Europe and North America. For the first time a complete facade is conceived in glass. Gropiusstadt is a locality within the Berlin borough. It was named after the architect who projected the complex. Building of the quarter, initially named Britz-Buckow-Rudow and projected in a modernist style. Pan Am Building is an example of an International style skyscraper. It is purely commercial in design with large floors, simple massing, with an absence of ornamentation inside and out. Pan Am originally occupied 15 floors of the building. Today the building is one of the most recognizable skyscrapers in the City. Reference: Wikipedia(internet). Bauhaus, The Tate Collection. The Walter Gropius Archive, Routledge