Wednesday 8 January 2014

Walter Gropius - Bauhaus : Task 2


Walter Gropius



Walter Adolph Gropius born in 1883 Berlin. He was a German American architect and educator. Walter Gropius was the director of the Bauhaus (1919-1928), he influenced the development of the modern architecture. He also worked with other architects, he design the Bauhaus school building and housing of the Bauhaus student and tutors (1925-1926) and the Harvard University Graduate Centre, and the United States Embassy in Athens.
Even Walter Gropius father was an architect so it was in his blood that he was that good in architecture. He studied architecture at the technical institute in Munich (1903-04) and in Berlin- Charlottenburg (1905-1907). In 1904 he was working an office in Berlin and he saw  military service. In his last year of school Walter build his first building it was a farm labourers cottage in Pomerania (1906). He spent one year travailing he went Italy. Spain, England and in 1907 he joined Peter Berhans office in Berlin. Walter wait that this work that he had done with Peter Berhens and the design problems he undertook for a German electricity company did so much to help his lifelong interest in his architecture.




Walter Gropius House (1938)




Bauhuas Building Designed by Gropius 


When Walter Gropius left Behrens in 1940 he made four years developing a good commitment to the talent for organisation dedication. In 1911 he became of the German Labour League (Deutschar Werkbund) which he founded in 1907 to ally designers with machine products. He started to except the inevitability and restrictions of mechanisation an he felt that it was up the professionally trained designers. Walter Gropius wanted to use such techniques in various buildings. He didn´t like the work of the machines he preferred the work of the designer. 

Walter Gropius improved his intellectuals leadership he designed two building, both of them with a collaboration with Adolph Meyer : the Fagus works at Alfeld in (1911) and the model office and factory buildings in Cologne (1914). The Fagus Works were inspired from Peter Berhens work which he used large glass, wall divided by visual steel support. In the other case the Cologne building was more formal, some people say that he inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright. These two buildings were designed and built before WW1.



Fagus Factory Designed by Walter Gropius 



The Interprint factory was recently build and it has inspiration from Walter Gropius had build.


Walter Gropius fought in the war as a cavalry officer on the Western Front he was wounded, after the war he received the Iron Cross for bravery. Gropius married a widow in 1905 Alma Mahler, whom he had met in 1910 when she was still married. They got  married during the war but there marriage wasn´t very stable, she also hand an fair with Frank Werfel and they divorced in 1919. Their child died in 1935 Alma Mona. Walter Gropius did in Boston 1969.



WW1 (1914-1919)


WW2 1939-1945 

The Bauhuas school closed down because of the war and Adolf Hitler didn´t like the things that the Bauhaus were  designing.



Referencing :

Encyclopedia Britannica. 2014. Walter Gropius (German-American architect). [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/246573/Walter-Gropius. [Accessed 04 January 14].

Kaufmann Mercantile. 2014. Now Haus . [ONLINE] Available at: http://kaufmann-mercantile.com/now-haus/. [Accessed 04 January 14].

galinsky. 1998. Gropius House by Walter Gropius . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/gropiushouse/. [Accessed 04 January 14].

World War stories. 2014. Wold At War. [ONLINE] Available at: http://worldwar42.blogspot.com/2011/11/world-war-2-battle-pictures.html. [Accessed 04 January 14].

BBC. 2014. BBC History . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/adolf_hitler. [Accessed 04 January 14].

Interprint. 2011. Interprint. Inspiring people. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.interprint.com/pl/newsy/index-62.html. [Accessed 04 January 14].







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