@
Walter Gropius' 
career as an 
architect was 
interrupted by 
the first world 
war. But after 
leaving the army
he focused his 
energies on the 
foundation of the 
Bauhaus design 
school. Its 
mission was to 
encompass the 
design of all 
functional objects
#
One of Gropius' 
prewar buildings 
was the Fagus 
factory (1911) 
near Hanover, the 
first in the world 
to feature curtain 
walls. He hung a  
glass facade on a 
skeletal frame, so 
that the windows 
'turned the corners' 
without the need of
brick columns
#
Gropius designed 
a new building 
for the Bauhaus 
in 1925. The 
school's philosophy 
was to combine art 
and design, and to 
reconcile craft 
tradition with the 
needs of industrial 
production. While 
director of the 
Bauhaus (1919-
29), Gropius 
employed such 
artists as Klee 
and Kandinsky to 
teach there
#
The so-called
Existenzminimum 
housing complex 
was Gropius'
most ambitious
undertaking. 
Existenzminimum
means 'bare 
necessities',and it 
reflected Gropius'
concern to reduce
architecture to 
its essentials, a
desire also evident
in his enthusiasm 
for the possib-
ilities of prefab-
ricated housing
#
Gropius left 
Germany in 1934 
and lived in 
Britain before 
becoming a US 
citizen in 1944. 
While in Britain 
he designed a 
school in the 
village of 
Impington, near 
Cambridge. It was 
to have a great 
influence on 
postwar school 
design in Britain
#
In 1968 there 
was a major 
exhibition in 
London devoted 
to the Bauhaus. 
The aesthetic of 
the Bauhaus 
movement struck 
a particular chord 
in the design-
conscious Sixties
#
Gropius said that 
"we have to 
destroy the 
separations 
between painting 
and sculpture and 
architecture and 
design - it is all 
one." Here, 
talking on BBC 
Radio, he gives an 
example of how 
art and 
architecture 
interact
@
Gropius began his practical training in Peter Behrens' office, in 1907. Talking to Behrens "my own ideas began to crystallise as to what the essential nature of a building ought to be," Gropius said
#
Marcel Breuer 
went to the 
Bauhaus as a 
student in 1920. 
His bent tubular 
steel furniture 
(said to have 
been inspired by 
the handlebars of 
his bicycle) was 
to become a 
Bauhaus icon. 
Later, he rejoined 
Gropius in the 
USA
#
Philip Johnson 
was originally an 
architectural 
historian, and his 
writings did a 
great deal to 
establish the 
reputation of 
Gropius and other 
European 
modernists in the 
USA. Later, 
Johnson became 
an architect 
himself, studying 
under Gropius at 
Harvard
#
Like Gropius, 
Mies worked in 
Peter Behrens' 
office; he 
followed Gropius 
as director of the 
Bauhaus; and he, 
too, went into 
exile in the USA. 
But as an 
architect he was 
to prove more of 
a leader than 
Gropius
@