Walter Gropius was one of a kind. During their honeymoon he and his wife travelled to Paris to visit Le Corbusier. His best men who both were professors at the Bauhaus were the famous painters Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky.
The not so humble beginnings
Gropius was born in Berlin in 1883 and studied architecture. Already in the first decade of the 20st century he worked in the office of Peter Behrens who is another great figure if it comes to architecture. On the picture below Gropius holds the plan in his hand. The first on the left is famous Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, whom we will meet later.
The Pioneer
Gropius was a pioneer if it comes to industrial standardisation as the opposite of custom-made products. A look at the history of the 20st century makes it obvious why he came up with this idea.
Already after WW1 that ended in 1918 large parts of cities lay in ashes which made it clear that new buildings, furniture and dishes had to be produced. Fast and at a reasonable price. For this reason Gropius had labs in which he designed and improved entire parts of buildings, stackable furniture and dishes.
Dessau 1925
When the in 1925 the Bauhaus moved from Weimar to Dessau, Gropius – who received an unlimited budget for this project – constructed the Bauhaus building which some very advanced features for the time. For instance, a «glass curtain» which means windows that lay on top of the walls and run around corners. Since isolation was not as far ahead as it is nowadays, the room temperature is exceptionally cold.
The city of Dessau allowed him to build «his» school the way he wanted but ordered that he constructed a second building for a regular school on the same ground. Gropius built the second, almost identical building.
Both buildings are still there, are in use and can be visited. Although, the Bauhaus school as such does no longer exist, one can book a guided tour discover its secrets, the use of the rooms and the philosophy behind, which makes it a fascinating trip.
The Marketing Guru
Gropius was obsessed with the Bauhaus philosophy. Therefore, kept a hawkish watch over the way it was presented to the public. Thanks to his friendship with Hugo Junkers, the famous aircraft engineer and owner of «Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works», he could take impressive aerial photos from Bauhaus.
However, not all of the Bauhaus professors shared the Bauhaus taste and furnished their homes – the lived in the so called «Meisterhäuser» that belonged to the Bauhaus – with traditional, heavy furniture made of oak. Gropius was not amused about this and did everything in his power to prevent a single picture of these interiors to go public. Well, some did which is why we know that Kandinsky’s taste was very far from the daring paintings he created.
Although he could not steer everything or detain the political directions from closing his school, a lot of the so called modern classics original from this creative environment.
