Nationality and country

Walter Gropius is a German American architect. He was born May 18, 1883
in Berlin, Germany. Halfway on his lifetime, he moved to Massachusetts, U.S. in
1937 and lived there until his death in July 5, 1969.
Educational background
Gropius was educated in a private school. He left school in 1903 and went
to the Technical University in Munich to study architecture. But in 1904 until
1905, we went for military service then went back to school. In 1907, he received
no degree because he left school without completion and went back to Berlin
because of the death of his brother.
He could not draw and while on school he hired an assistant to complete
his homework. He was dependent on collaborators and partner-interpreters
throughout his career.
Teaching and/or research experience
In 1904, he worked in an architectural office in Berlin. He traveled for a
year and eventually joined the office of the architect Peter Behrens in Berlin in
1907. His fellow employees at this time included Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le
Corbusier, and Dietrich Marck.
Gropius left the firm of Behrens in 1910 and together with fellow employee
Adolf Meyer established a practice in Berlin. He became a member of the
German Labour League (Deutscher Werkbund) the next year. It was founded in
1907 to ally creative designers with machine production
He published an article in 1913 about "The Development of Industrial
Buildings," which included about a dozen photographs of factories and grain
elevators in North America. The article had a strong influence on other European
modernists, including Le Corbusier and Erich Mendelsohn, both of whom
reprinted Gropius's grain elevator pictures between 1920 and 1930.
The outbreak of World War I interrupted Gropius career in 1914. Called up
immediately as a reservist, Gropius served as a sergeant major and then as a
lieutenant at the Western front during the war years and was wounded and
almost killed. He was awarded the Iron Cross twice.
In 1915, Henry van de Velde was asked to step down in 1915 as the
master of the Grand-Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar. He
recommended Gropius and eventually led to his appointment as the master of
the school in 1919. The Grand Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts, the Grand
Ducal Saxon Academy of Arts, and the Grand Ducal Saxon School of Arts were
immediately united as Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar (Public Bauhaus Weimar).
Gropius acceptance of this appointment was the most decisive step in his
career. He succeeded in establishing a viable new approach to design education.
It became an international prototype and eventually supplanted the 200-year-old
supremacy of the French cole des Beaux-Arts.

A key principle of Gropius Bauhaus teaching was the requirement that the
architect and designer undergo a practical crafts training to acquaint himself
with materials and processes.
In 1919, Gropius was involved in the Glass Chain utopian expressionist
correspondence under the pseudonym "Mass." His "Monument to the March
Dead," designed in 1919 and executed in 1920, indicates that expressionism was
an influence on him at that time despite of his notable functionalist approach.
It was in 1923 when Gropius designed his famous door handles that is one
of the most influential designs to emerge from Bauhaus.
In 1925 the Bauhaus moved to Dessau. In Dessau, Gropius designed the
school building and faculty housing (192526). The school itself is a key
monument of modern architecture and Gropius best-known building. The
features of the building were associated with the so-called International Style of
the 1920s.
Gropius resigned as director of the Bauhaus in 1928 to return to practice
privately as an architect in Berlin. He collaborated with Carl Fieger, Ernst Neufert
and others within his private architectural practice. He also designed large-scale
housing projects in Berlin, Karlsruhe and Dessau in 192632 that were major
contributions to the New Objectivity movement, including a contribution to the
Siemensstadt project in Berlin.
Hitlers government closed the Bauhaus in 1933. He and his second wife,
Ise Frank, left Germany due to rise of Hitler with the help of the English architect
Maxwell Fry in 1934. He secretly went to England via Italy. Gropius brief time in
England was marked by collaboration with the architect Maxwell Fry that resulted
in their important work, Village College at Impington, Cambridgeshire (1936).
In February 1937 Gropius arrived in Cambridge, Mass., to become
professor of architecture at Harvard University. He became the chairman of the
department the following year, a post he held until his retirement in 1952. He
became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1944. At Harvard he introduced the Bauhaus
philosophy of design into the curriculum, although he was unable to implement
workshop training. He was also unsuccessful in abolishing the history of
architecture as a course. His crusade for modern design immediately became
popular among the students. These innovations at Harvard soon provoked similar
educational reform in other architectural schools in the United States and
marked the beginning of the end of a historically imitative architecture in that
country.
In addition to his teaching, Gropius collaborated with Marcel Breuer, a
former Bauhaus pupil and later fellow teacher, from 1937 until 1940. Among
their designs was Gropius own house in Lincoln, Mass., which, with its use of
white-painted wood and fieldstone, restated New England traditionalism in
modern terms. This house and others designed by them were controversial, but
the architects lived to see acceptance of their ideas. In 1942 Gropius renewed his
interest in the production of architecture by industry when he became the vice
president of General Panel Corporation, a company that made prefabricated
housing. He retired in 1952.

Gropius formed The Architects Collaborative (TAC), with six of his former
Harvard pupils as partners, based in Cambridge in 1946. Among its varied
American and international commissions, TAC received one to do the Harvard
University Graduate Center (194950), a grouping of dormitory buildings design
is reminiscent of but less forceful than the Dessau Bauhaus buildings. Other TAC
designs include the United States Embassy in Athens (1960) and the University
of Baghdad (design accepted 1960, still under construction). Gropius remained
an active member of TAC until he died at the age of 86. In accord with his
request made in 1933 that his funeral not be a mournful affair but marked in a
festive manner, 70 friends in Cambridge drank champagne in his memory two
days after his death.
Well known objects (buildings, city neighborhood plans, books)
FAGUS FACTORY (1911) Alfeld, Germany
The Fagus Factory is a shoe last factory in Alfeld, Germany. In collaboration
with Adolf Meyer, it is an important example of early modern architecture built at
Alfeld-an-der-leine. This was Gropius first independent commission.
On 25th June 2011, in line with its 100th jubilee, the Fagus Factory is
designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
BAUHAUS ARCHIVE (1979) Berlin, Germany
Founded in Darmstadt in 1960, Gropius was asked to design the museum
for the Bauhaus Archive in 1964. The collection documents the history of
Bauhaus in art, teaching, architecture and design.
GROPIUS HOUSE (1938) Lincoln, Massachusetts
This house was Gropius family residence and was his first architectural
commission in the United States. It is now owned by Historic New England and is
open to the public.
In 2000, it was declared a National Historic Landmark.
SIEMENSSTADT HOUSING ESTATE or RING ESTATE (1926-32) - Europe,
Eurasia, Germany, Western Europe
It is a nonprofit residential community in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf
district of Berlin. As one of the six Modernist Housing Estates in Berlin, it was
recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in July 2008.
EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES (1961) Athens, Greece
The design was inspired by the architecture of Parthenon. It was
constructed between 1959-1961 and is a protected architectural landmark.
METLIFE BUILDING (1963) Park Avenue, New York
It is a skyscraper built in 1958-63 as the Pan Am Building in collaboration
with Emery Roth & Sons and Pietro Belluschi.
JOSEPHINE M. HAGERTY HOUSE (1938) Cohasset, Massachusetts

It was located near the shoreline and was built in 1938. In 1997, it was
added to the National Historic Register.
HARVARD GRADUATE CENTER (1950) Cambridge, Massachusetts
Commissioned with The Architects Collaborative, it was also known as
The Gropius Complex. It is a grouping of dormitory buildings and dining
commons.
Architectural or city planning awards (Pritzker, AIA Gold Award etc.)
AIA Gold Medal Award (1959)
The AIA Gold Medal is awarded by the American Institute of Architects
conferred "by the national AIA Board of Directors in recognition of a
significant body of work of lasting influence on the theory and practice of
architecture."
It is the Institute's highest award. Since 1947, the medal has been
awarded more-or-less annually.
Albert Medal (1961)
The Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) was instituted in 1864
as a memorial to Prince Albert, who had been President of the Society for
18 years.[1] It was first awarded in 1864 for "distinguished merit in
promoting Arts, Manufactures and Commerce". In presenting the Medal,
the Society now looks to acknowledge individuals, organisation and groups
that lead progress and create positive change within contemporary society
in areas that are linked closely to the Society's broad agenda.
Through the Albert Medal, the Society acknowledges the profound
creativity and innovation of those that work to tackle some of the world's
intractable problems. Each year, the RSA identifies topical issues that
confront modern society by asking the Society's Fellowship to suggest
problems/subjects linked to the Society's programme. These proposals are
reviewed and recommendations made to the Trustees and Council who are
responsible for selecting one upon which the Fellowship will be asked to
nominate worthy recipients.
Goethe Prize (1961)
The Goethe Prize of the City of Frankfurt' (German: Goethepreis
der Stadt Frankfurt) is a prestigious award for achievement 'worthy of
honour in memory of Johann Wolfgang Goethe' made by the city of
Frankfurt am Main, Germany.[1] It was usually an annual award until 1955,
and thereafter has been triennial. Many recipients are authors, but
persons working in several other creative and scientific fields have been
honoured.