Walter Gropius

Walter Gropius
Walter Gropius (1883-1969) was a celebrated German architect and teacher, founder of the
school of design known as the Bauhaus in Germany, and a leading proponent of modern
architecture. This house was his first architectural commission in the United States, built in
1938 as his family home after coming here to teach at Harvard's Graduate School of Design.
This was Walter Gropius's home from 1938 until his death in 1969. Restoration of the
Gropius House is being supported in part by a Save America's Treasures grant administered
by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior. The project encompasses repairs to
the south and west elevations and replanting of the orchard and meadow. The Gropius House
is a National Historic Landmark.
Bauhaus
Gropius directed the Bauhaus in Germany from its founding in 1919 until 1928. He was
thirty-five years old when he was appointed Director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Weimar,
Germany. One of his first decisions was to combine this school with the School of Arts and
Crafts and rename the new institution the Bauhaus. Bauhaus is taken from the contraction of
two German words: Bauen (to build) and Haus (house), and translated means "House of
Building." The Bauhaus took an all-embracing attitude toward design, encouraging
collaboration and taking into consideration not only the individual object or building but also
the larger context, the community, and the environment. Training required the student to
study the fine arts, to learn the skills of a craft, to understand the properties of materials, and
to be familiar with technology and factory production. The Bauhaus embraced new materials,
new technology, and sought to create a new aesthetic, unencumbered by historical tradition.
Students were taught that beauty was to be found in the economy of form, in expressive use of
materials, and in solutions that were suitable, economical, practical, and therefore inherently
elegant.
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Bauhaus building, Dessau, Germany

Financial woes and political opposition forced the school to move from Weimar to Dessau in
1925. The school entered its most creative phase in Dessau where Gropius brought together a
faculty of celebrated artists and craftspeople that included Josef Albers, Wassily Kandinsky,
Paul Klee, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and Marcel Breuer. The political situation in Germany at
this time was rapidly changing with the rise of the Nazi Party. The government closed the
Bauhaus in 1932 and Gropius, who had left the school in 1928 to open a private practice in
Berlin, fell into disfavor of the Third Reich. They described his work as "Communist."
Gropius submitted designs for government-funded projects that were consistently rejected.
There was little work in Germany for anyone not closely aligned with the government. In
1934, the German government granted Gropius's request to work temporarily in London. He,
his wife Ise, and their daughter Ati remained there for two and a half years. Gropius entered
into partnership with Maxwell Fry, a leading exponent of modern architecture in England.
While in London, the Dean of Harvard's Graduate School of Design, Joseph Hudnut, visited
Gropius and offered him a teaching position. Harvard, anxious to revitalize the teaching of
architecture and change their curriculum from the Beaux-Arts tradition, pursued Gropius. Yet
only when Harvard agreed to allow him to build a private architectural practice in addition to
his teaching did Gropius accept the offer. However, first Gropius had to persuade the German
government to allow him to transfer to the United States. The government reluctantly agreed
and allowed Gropius to return to Germany to collect his personal belongings. In return, the
Propaganda Ministry advertised that Harvard had appointed a German citizen, for the first
time, to a traditional professorship and in such a role would serve Germany as an exemplary
model of its greatness.
Walter, Ise, and Ati Gropius at the Sandy

Pond House
Walter and Ise Gropius arrived in the United States in the spring of 1937, with little more than
their furniture made in the workshops of the Bauhaus, their books, and office files. Their
daughter Ati, twelve years old at the time, remained behind to finish out the school year. They
immediately fell in love with the New England countryside and admired the landscape outside
Cambridge and Boston and, in contrast to their apartments in Berlin and London, decided to
live in more rural surroundings. They found a Colonial-style house to rent on Sandy Pond in
Lincoln, Massachusetts, but the house did not suit their functional or aesthetic needs. Ise later
wrote: "Our Bauhaus furniture looked indeed strange in the small rooms of this prim little
house of Colonial style." New social connections inspired an extraordinary opportunity.
Henry Shepley, an architect friend, approached philanthropist and patron of the arts Helen
Storrow, and informed her that "the new German professor" at the Harvard School of Design
was "desperate" to build a house for himself but was not in the financial position to do so. He
suggested that she offer him a piece of land on her large estate, finance the house, and rent it
to him so that they could "see what he might do." Mrs. Storrow, who was known to support
hundreds of individuals and organizations, agreed almost immediately. Gropius, of course,
accepted her generous offer.
Gropius House, Lincoln

The Gropiuses wanted their home to reflect its surroundings and traveled around New
England studying its vernacular architecture. In designing the house, Gropius combined
traditional elements of New England architecture such as clapboard, brick, and fieldstone,
with new, innovative materials, such as glass block, acoustical plaster, and chromed banisters,
along with the latest technology in fixtures.
Another view of the Gropius House

Furthermore, Gropius carefully sited the house to complement its New England habitat on a
rise overlooking an apple orchard and fields. The house was also built with economy in mind.
The screened porch and terraces extend the living spaces outdoors, it is sited for maximum
ventilation and passive solar heating, and all fixtures and building supplies were factory-made
items readily available form catalogs and supply houses in the United States. Using the
Bauhaus design approach the house utilizes standard materials and products. The result is a
regionally inspired house that employs the philosophy and goals of the Modern movement.
First floor hallway

The entry and hallway illustrate Gropius’s use of traditional New England forms and ideas.
The central hall with doors at both front and rear, reminiscent of eighteenth-century homes,
ensures cross ventilation. Inside the front door is a mudroom, separated from the hall by a
curtain rather than a door, that could be closed to keep out the cold and opened to enhance
ventilation. White clapboards, a traditional New England material, are used in a non-
traditional way to great effect. Brought inside and applied vertically, Ise felt that “their narrow
vertical shadows relieve the white blandness and make an excellent background for artwork.”
The central stair, again a New England tradition, is modified by Gropius. The curved staircase
faces away from the entry, signifying the upstairs as private space.
To the left of the entrance door is an open space to hang coats. A coat closet positioned near
the front entry was not a typical feature found in houses at this time. And by eliminating the
door, Gropius incorporated the closet as a design element, as a way to introduce color and
texture that would change with the seasons. The building materials used in the hallway are
also unusual in a residential setting. The floor is a resilient cork tile and the ceiling is made of
acoustical plaster. Both materials are sound-absorbing, durable, functional, and elegant. The
lighting in this space and throughout the house is distinctive. Gropius used glass blocks and a
floor-to-ceiling window to transmit natural light to this area. He installed steel-plated wall
sconces, intended for commercial application, to provide both indirect light and dramatic
shadows when used in the evening. Gropius consulted catalogs that catered to hotels,
restaurants, theaters, and other industries. Through these suppliers he was able to acquire
fixtures designed for intensive use and long life. To the right of the closet is one of four
bathrooms in the house. All four are arranged in one connected area to minimize plumbing
and installation costs. The artwork displayed in the hallway includes a Joan Miro lithograph
depicting a stylized bull in black, red and white, a chromatic grouping favored by the Bauhaus
and seen throughout the Gropius House. Miro likely gave it as a gift to his friend.
Study
Gropius designed the study to accommodate the double desk that fits perfectly under the
north-facing ribbon window. Designed by Marcel Breuer and made in the workshops at the
Bauhaus of maple and walnut veneer, it was originally made for the director’s house in
Dessau. Breuer designed the desk to the Gropiuses’ specifications so that they could work
side by side. The desk illustrates the collaborative nature of the Gropiuses. Ise was very much
Walter’s partner, actively advocating the philosophy of the Bauhaus, and helping Gropius
with his work. In keeping with the collaborative philosophy of the Bauhaus, Gropius granted
his twelve-year-old daughter’s request that she have a separate entry so that she could forgo
formalities when bringing friends home, and installed the steel exterior stairway seen through
the front window. The stairway leads to the roof deck and Ati’s room. Of course its location,
directly outside the study window, allowed Mr. and Mrs. Gropius to keep an eye on all
comings and goings. This room also illustrates Gropius’s use of flexible spaces. The study
acts as a passageway into the living room. The angled glass block wall implies motion and
invites the visitor to progress toward the living room.
Desk in study
Living room
Large windows frame the landscape and expand the interior spaces. To the west is a view of
the apple orchard, the south faces the private back yard. Both walls have windows positioned
for maximum light and heat. A projecting overhang on the southern exposure blocks the sun
in the summer and allows it to penetrate in winter. A glass door on the south wall allows easy
access to the patio for entertaining and for everyday use. The living room features a fireplace
for, according to Ise Gropius, its practical value and for the “psychological effect of an open
fire, which we had learned to savor during our stay in London. It creates a relaxed atmosphere
and seems to satisfy a craving to feel safe and secure during a roaring snowstorm.” Gropius
maximized space along the north wall with bookshelves and storage cabinets. The books on
the top shelf are those written by him or ones he collaborated on, kept on hand so that he
could give signed copies to his friends and colleagues who visited.
With a few exceptions, the furnishings in the living room date from the Bauhaus at Dessau.
Marcel Breuer designed the tubular steel frame tables said to have been inspired by his
bicycle’s handlebars. Breuer also designed the bent-wood lounge chair on the west wall in
1936 during his stay in England and, according to Ati, the chair was her mother’s favorite
sitting place. The Saarinen “Womb Chair” was given to Gropius by friends on his seventieth
birthday in 1953. The two small bentwood stools in front of the fireplace, prized possessions
of the Gropiuses, were designed by Japanese craftsman Sori Yanagi and bought in Toyko
when the Gropiuses visited in 1954.
Dining room
The living room and dining room appear as one coherent space but may be separated by a
curtain. The Gropiuses entertained often. They invited Gropius’s students each year and
would set up a buffet on the sideboard along the glass block wall and take advantage of the
patio space in pleasant weather. Yet they favored small, intimate dinner parties with close
friends and designed their dining room as a dramatic setting in which to entertain them. While
they enjoyed cocktails with their guests in the living room, the maid would be behind the
drape quietly preparing the table for the evening’s dinner. The drape would open and dinner
would be served. The overhead light, a fixture designed for use in an art museum to light a
piece of sculpture, created a dramatic scene as it illuminated to just the edge of the table. The
guests would be sitting in darkness while the crystal and tableware sparkled under the soft
light and reflected upward creating a flattering appearance for those seated. The exterior
lighting would illuminate the landscape, eliminating the glass wall and creating the illusion of
dining outside. The dining table and chairs were also made in the Bauhaus workshops under
the direction of Marcel Breuer. The chrome and canvas chairs are paired with a Formica
dining table designed in 1925. All were original furnishings of the Bauhaus director’s house
in Dessau.
Kitchen
Gropius designed the kitchen and pantry with efficiency and function in mind. He used new
materials available at this time and items ordered from nontraditional catalogs. The kitchen
features a solid stainless steel sink and counter top complete with garbage disposal. The
pantry contains a second smaller sink next to an automatic dishwasher. Both garbage
disposals and dishwashers were appliances not generally used in 1938 kitchens. These
features, combined with the steel cabinets and marble cutting board, illustrate how influential
Gropius was. What we see in these two rooms has been so widely imitated that it is difficult
today to imagine how revolutionary it all was in 1938.
Gropius also integrated plastic wherever he could, because he thought “plastic was king!”
Some dishes on the counter and dining room table are plastic, as are the curtains in the pantry.
The pantry also offers a glimpse of the Bauhaus palette: black, white, and gray, the colors of
the machine age, with red as an accent. The black and white tea service on the counter was
one of the last designs Gropius worked on at his architectural firm TAC (The Architects
Collaborative), and is still manufactured today.
Screened porch
Walter and Ise Gropius considered the screened porch to be among the best practical New
England responses to the environment. They noted, however, that porches usually darkened
interior living spaces and were often placed at the front or side of a house. In past decades a
porch overlooking the road would be quite pleasant, with neighbors and infrequent slow-
moving vehicles passing by. However, modern living dictated that a porch should not force
the occupants of the house to endure the noise of the street. Gropius adapted the basic idea to
a private garden façade, placing the porch perpendicular to the house to capture every
available breeze, provide total privacy from the road, and darken only a service room.
Screened porch, cont.

The porch was a favorite gathering place for the Gropiuses. They used it year round. In the
warmer months they filled the porch with furniture and spent many hours there. In the winter,
Walter Gropius set up his ping pong table and enjoyed the game as a form of exercise.

Master bedroom suite
This room reflects Gropius’s economical use of space and contains many innovative design
details. A glass wall separates dressing room from sleeping area creating the illusion of a
larger space while solving a practical design problem. The wall separates two heating zones,
allowing the Gropiuses to sleep in a cold environment but dress in a warmer one. There is also
a curtain one could close for privacy and a door that could be closed to contain noise. Wooden
slats are attached to the wall’s surface to carry through the line of the windows while
preserving the plaster as they act as a durable surface on which the Gropiuses could attach art
work or other decoration. Again, the bedroom illustrates how Gropius designed the house
around his furniture. The room is just large enough to accommodate the king-sized bed
between two Breuer-designed night tables. In the dressing room, storage is built in behind
doors making the use of bureaus unnecessary. The artwork in the master bedroom suite
includes an abstract composition by Gropius’s good friend and colleague Josef Albers, and a
drawing titled, "Underground Shelter with Figures" by Henry Moore, given to Gropius by the
artist in 1941.
Hallway
The stair railing is one of the few custom-made items in the house. The bent-metal banister
was fitted in place and is ergonomically curved to match the climber’s stride, aiding one’s
ascent.
Guest bedroom
The size of the furniture determined the size of the guest bedroom. The beds, placed head to
head, equal the length of the room. The dressing table plus night table plus bed equals the
width. While the room is small, the placement of the furniture gives it a much larger feel. The
guest bedroom was also a flexible space. The Gropiuses used it as a sitting room when there
were no guests, and in the winter, Ise took advantage of the southern exposure and used it as a
greenhouse.
Ati's room
Ati was twelve years old when they built the house and was encouraged to express her own
ideas and creativity. She chose her own palette using warm earth tones and helped in the
design of her room.
Ati's room, cont.

Included in the furnishings in Ati's room is a walnut and birch desk designed by Walter
Gropius and made in the Bauhaus carpentry workshop in 1922. Made for Gropius's use in the
director's room in the Weimar Bauhaus, it reflects the influence of the Arts and Crafts
Movement and the emphasis on craftsmanship during the early years of the Bauhaus. Paired
with the desk is a tubular steel and cane chair designed by Breuer during the years of the
Dessau Bauhaus in 1928, and intended for mass production. These two pieces illustrate how
the Bauhaus design philosophy evolved to emphasize simple mass-producible designs.
Roof deck
In addition to wanting her own entry, Ati asked for a floor of sand and a ceiling of glass. Not
able to grant these requests, her father designed the roof deck where Ati could sleep under the
stars.

The Gropius House
Gropius House, widely publicized over the years because of Gropius's prominence, had a
revolutionary effect. The family home became a showcase for Bauhaus design and
philosophy. Architects and students came to study the house, many of them subsequently
carrying Gropius's ideas and methods into their own work and teaching. Ise Gropius
bequeathed the house to Historic New England in 1984 to continue the tradition of teaching
the principles of the Bauhaus Movement.
Collections on Display
Butterfly Footstools
At the Gropius House, Bauhaus ideals remain alive, and throughout Gropius’s life, he and Ise
continued to add newly designed furnishings that reflected their belief in the marriage of
design and industry. Among their favorite additions was the pair of stools by Sori Yanagi of
Japan. Gropius traveled to Japan in 1954 and found the Japanese aesthetic intensely
inspirational. These stools, designed the year Gropius arrived in Japan, and perhaps acquired
by him there, combine modern materials with the lilting curvilinear lines typical of Japanese
design. The stools were given pride of place in the Gropius home, in the living room in front
of the hearth.

Dining Chairs
The design for these tubular steel and canvas chairs is the result of Marcel Breuer’s
improvisation with the handlebars of his Adler bicycle. This set of six Breuer chairs consists
of three sections of continuous chrome-plated tubular steel bolted together with canvas back
and seat covers. The Gropius House contains a significant collection of furniture designed by
Marcel Breuer and fabricated in the Bauhaus workshops, including a convertible daybed, a
cantilevered armchair, nesting tables, side tables, as well as the Gropiuses’ desk from the
Director’s House in Dessau.
Womb Chair
This “womb” chair was designed by Finnish architect Eero

Saarinen in 1946, and manufactured in 1948 by Knoll Associates. It is one of the few pieces
of furniture in the Gropius House not designed in the Bauhaus workshops. Ise Gropius said
that it was given to Gropius on his seventieth birthday. The design for the chair was the result
of Saarinen’s concern for the comfort of the sitter and the unity of its interior space and
architecture. The original fabric remains intact.
Desk
Designed by Walter Gropius for his office in the Weimar Bauhaus, this piece of furniture is
the oldest in the house. It was handcrafted in the woodwork shop of the Bauhaus school in
1923. This desk served Gropius well during the years in Weimar and Dessau until 1928 when
he took it to Berlin. Part of the desk, the four glass shelves and the wooden support brackets
on the right side, were broken in the transport to America. They were never repaired or
replaced. In 1938 when the family moved into the Lincoln house, Ati, Walter and Ise's
twelve-year-old daughter, chose to have this desk in her bedroom.
Stable Tools
This painting was given to the Gropiuses by Herbert Bayer, one of their dearest lifelong
friends. Bayer, born in Austria in 1900, was a student at the Bauhaus from 1921-1923, after
which he became a Master in the print department. “Stable Tools,” an abstract rendering of
agricultural tools hanging on a barnyard wall, moved to several locations in the Lincoln house
and now can be seen in Ati Gropius’s bedroom in Lincoln.
Gropius House
Lincoln, Massachusetts
1938
A National Historic Landmark
More images of Gropius House
Walter Gropius, founder of the German design school known as the Bauhaus, was one of the
most influential architects of the twentieth century. He designed the Gropius House as his
family home when he came to Massachusetts to teach architecture at Harvard's Graduate
School of Design.
Modest in scale, the house was revolutionary in impact. It combined the traditional elements
of New England architecture—wood, brick, and fieldstone—with innovative materials rarely
used in domestic settings at that time, including glass block, acoustical plaster, chrome
banisters, and the latest technology in fixtures.
In keeping with Bauhaus philosophy, every aspect of the house and its surrounding landscape
was planned for maximum efficiency and simplicity of design. The house contains a
significant collection of furniture designed by Marcel Breuer and fabricated in the Bauhaus
workshops. With the family's possessions still in place, the Gropius House has a sense of
immediacy and intimacy.
Please visit nearby Codman Estate.
Gropius House History

1919-1937: Bauhaus to Harvard
1938-1969: A Family Home in Lincoln
1969-1974: Gropius’s Intent
1974-present: Becoming a Museum
1919-1937: Bauhaus to Harvard
The Gropius House in Lincoln, Massachusetts, was built in 1938 by German architect Walter
Gropius (1883-1969). He was thirty-five years old when he was appointed director of the
Academy of Fine Arts in Weimar, Germany. One of his first decisions was to combine the
Academy of Fine Arts with the School of Crafts and rename the new institution the
Bauhaus. Bauhaus is taken from two German words: bauen (to build) and Haus (house), and
translated means "House of Building," an idea Gropius took from medieval craft guilds.
Gropius was director of the Bauhaus from its founding in 1919 until 1928.
Financial woes and political opposition forced the school to move from Weimar to Dessau in
1925. The school entered its most creative phase in Dessau, where Gropius brought together a
faculty of celebrated artists and craftspeople that included Josef Albers, Wassily Kandinsky,
Paul Klee, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer, Anni Albers, Marianne Brandt, Alexander
Schawinsky, and Marcel Breuer, among others.
The attitude of the Bauhaus toward design was all-embracing, encouraging collaboration and
taking into consideration not only the individual object or building but also the larger context,
the community, and the environment. Training required students to study the fine arts, to learn
the skills of a craft, to understand the properties of materials, and to be familiar with
technology and factory production. The Bauhaus embraced new materials, new technology,
and sought to create a new aesthetic, unencumbered by historical tradition. Students were
taught that beauty was to be found in the economy of form, in the expressive use of materials,
and in solutions that were suitable, economical, practical, and therefore inherently elegant.
The political situation in Germany at the time was rapidly changing with the rise of the Nazi
Party. The government closed the Bauhaus in 1933 and Gropius, who had left the school in
1928 to open a private practice in Berlin, fell into disfavor with the Third Reich, who
described his work as "Communist." Gropius submitted designs for government-funded
projects that were consistently rejected. There was little work in Germany for anyone not
closely aligned with the government.
In 1934, the German government granted Gropius's request to work temporarily in London.
The dean of Harvard's Graduate School of Design, Joseph Hudnut, visited Gropius in London
and offered him a teaching position at the university. Harvard pursued Gropius, anxious to
revitalize the teaching of architecture and change their curriculum from the Beaux-Arts
tradition. Only when Harvard agreed to allow him to build a private architectural practice in
America - in addition to his teaching - did Gropius accept the offer.
Walter Gropius accepted the appointment as professor and subsequently chairman of the

Harvard Graduate School of Design in Architecture in 1937. However, first Gropius had to
persuade the German government to allow him to transfer to the United States. The
government reluctantly agreed and allowed Gropius to return to Nazi Germany to collect his
personal belongings, but the regime did not allow him to take any cash assets out of the
country. In return, the Propaganda Ministry advertised that Harvard had appointed a German
citizen, for the first time, to a traditional professorship. They were convinced that in such a
role he would serve Germany as an exemplary model of its greatness.
Walter and Ise Gropius arrived in the United States in the spring of 1937 with little more than
their furniture made in the workshops of the Bauhaus, their books, and office files. Their
daughter Ati, twelve years old at the time, remained behind in England to finish the school
year. They immediately fell in love with the New England countryside and admired the
landscape outside Cambridge and Boston and, in contrast to their apartments in Berlin and
London, decided to live in more rural surroundings. They found a Colonial-style house to rent
on Sandy Pond in Lincoln, Massachusetts, but the house did not suit their functional or
aesthetic needs. Ise later wrote, "Our Bauhaus furniture looked indeed strange in the small
rooms of this prim little house of Colonial style."
1938-1969: A Family Home in Lincoln
New social connections brought an extraordinary opportunity. Henry Shepley, an architect

friend, approached philanthropist and patron of the arts Helen Storrow, informing her that
"the new German professor" at the Harvard School of Design was ‘desperate’ to build a house
for himself but was not in the financial position to do so. He suggested that she offer him a
piece of land on her large estate in Lincoln, Massachusetts, finance the house, and rent it to
him so that they could "see what he might do." Mrs. Storrow, who was known to support
many individuals and organizations, agreed almost immediately. Mrs. Storrow thought that
newly arrived immigrants should always be given a chance, so she offered Gropius a building
site and the financial resources to build his house, because as she put it, “if it is good, it will
take root.” Gropius chose four acres on a small hill surrounded by Mrs. Storrow’s apple
orchard.
Working with local Concord, Massachusetts, builder Casper J. Jenney and approximately
$20,000, the Gropius’s wanted their home to reflect its surroundings and traveled around New
England studying vernacular architecture. In designing the house, Gropius combined
traditional elements of New England architecture such as clapboard, brick, and fieldstone,
with new, innovative materials, some of them industrial, such as glass block, acoustical
plaster, and chromed banisters, along with the latest technology in fixtures. The design of the
Gropius House is consistent with Bauhaus philosophies of simplicity, functionality, economy,
geometry, and aesthetic beauty determined by materials rather than applied ornamentation.
Gropius used traditional New England building materials and architectural elements in
intriguing ways, like the vertical clapboard walls of the front hall which are not only
functional but beautiful. Gropius used their vertical orientation to create the illusion of height
as well as a practical surface for hanging an ever-changing collection of artwork; wood is an
easy surface to nail, patch, and paint. The entrance is an example of how Gropius interpreted a
center entrance Colonial with a Bauhaus twist. This portico is on a diagonal that leads the
visitor to the front door according to the natural approach. A glass block wall protects from
wind and rain, yet allows light to permeate the entry passage as well as the interior hall. Mrs.
Gropius noted that repairs were “kept to a minimum because the house was remarkably well
built.” After weathering criticism and bewilderment about the house’s unusual design and
materials from fellows in the local lumber yard, builder Casper Jenney of Concord was
vindicated in the eyes of his colleagues after the house survived the devastating hurricane of
1938 with minimal damage.
Many of the fixtures in the Gropius House were sourced from non-traditional commercial
catalogs. For example, the hall sconces were ordered from hotel catalogs. On each side of the
bathroom mirrors, half-chrome light bulbs redirect light to the sides and reflect light back to
the mirrors. This creates flattering light, while simultaneously eliminating the need for any
additional lighting shade or cover. The towel rack was installed on the hot water radiator to
warm the towels, which in 1938 was an idea ahead of its time. The Gropius House has four
bathrooms, two on the first floor and two on the second floor; they are all plumbed on one
main stack for efficiency and economy. All four bathrooms were located in the less prominent
northwest corner of the house, where solar gain and views were not important.
Above the Marcel Breuer-designed white Formica dining room table is a ceiling light fixture
that was a type used by museums to highlight a piece of artwork. It has a particular adjustable
aperture so that it illuminates only to the perimeter of the table. This dramatic lighting effect
was used by the Gropiuses as part of their entertaining repertoire of sparkling dishes, floral
arrangements, cast shadows, and flattering light.
Gropius experimented with non-traditional materials such as the California acoustic plaster
found throughout the living and dining room walls and ceilings as well as elsewhere in the
house. A very porous substance that unfortunately has “greyed” over time from its original
white color, it was applied with a spray gun over the lath. Its sound-absorbing characteristics
still function effectively.
Almost all of the furniture in the house was handmade in the Bauhaus workshops in Dessau
before the family left Germany. There are a few notable exceptions, including the Saarinen
‘womb’ chair and the Sori Yanagi ‘butterfly’ footstools in the living room. Ise purchased the
two-seat TECTA sofa in the living room in 1975 from Germany.
Guests to the Gropiuses' home and dinner table included their Bauhaus friends and fellow
émigrés as well as other notables of the twentieth century. Alexander Calder, Joan Miro, Igor
Stravinsky, Henry Moore, Demetri Hadzi, and Frank Lloyd Wright are a few names in the
Gropius guest book.
In several ways, Gropius incorporated the philosophy of living in harmony with nature. The
large plate glass windows have a dual purpose: they visually bring the outdoors in, but also
permit passive solar gain. Another strategy he used was to allow the flat roof rainwater and
snow melt to drain through a center pipe to a dry well. Over time, Mrs. Gropius designed her
gardens to become low-water, low-maintenance, and incorporated indigenous plants. They did
not have air conditioning, but used passive ventilation.
Walter Gropius believed that the relationship of a house to its landscape was of paramount
importance, and he designed the grounds of the home as carefully as the structure itself. In
1938, the Gropiuses enjoyed sweeping views because the house stood alone on top of the hill
unobstructed by trees and woods. The grassy plinth on which the house sits is defined by
stone walls. This “civilized area” around the house included a lawn extending roughly twenty
feet around the house and a perennial garden that continued the thrust of the south-facing
screen porch. Beyond the well-tended ring, the apple orchard and meadow were left to grow
naturally. For new trees, the Gropiuses selected Scotch pine, white pine, elm, oak, and
American beech.
Wooden trellises reaching from the east and west sides of the house and covered with roses,
and vines offered privacy and protection from the road. Vines such as bittersweet, Concord
grape, and trumpet vine were planted to link the house to the landscape. The Gropius’s goal
was to create a New England landscape, complete with mature trees, rambling stone walls,
and rescued boulders as focal points.
The Japanese-inspired garden in the back of the house was installed by Mrs. Gropius in 1957
after a trip to Asia. It was her intention to create a low-horizon profile in the garden with
azaleas, cotoneasters, candytuft, and junipers, and to use a red maple as the focal point under
the arch.
Walter and Ise Gropius considered the screened porch to be among the best practical New
England responses to the environment. However, they noted, porches usually darkened
interior living spaces and were often placed at the front or side of a house. In past decades a
porch overlooking the road would be quite pleasant, with neighbors and infrequent slow-
moving vehicles passing by. However, modern living dictated that a porch should not force
the occupants of the house to endure the noise of the street. Gropius adapted the basic idea,
placing the porch perpendicular to the house to capture every available breeze, provide total
privacy from the road, and darken only a service room. The screened porch room permitted
outdoor living year round. Mr. Gropius played ping-pong there in the winter months, as the
south and west-facing sun would warm it in winter, and the breezes would cool it in summer.
On the advice of Mrs. Storrow, the garage was placed at the foot of the driveway to the left of
the entrance. This was a distance from the house, but convenient for minimizing snow
shoveling in winter. It also provided an unobstructed view of the main structure. After Mrs.
Storrow’s death in 1945, the Gropiuses bought the house from her son, and added one and a
half acres to the original four acres.
1969-1974: Gropius’s Intent
Walter Gropius died in 1969, leaving Mrs. Gropius a two-sentence will. In the will he states
that he loves her and trusts her with his legacy. Mrs. Gropius acted on her husband’s intent
by establishing the Walter Gropius Archives at Harvard, donating his Bauhaus and Harvard
materials to those archives respectively, as well as donating pieces of art to the Busch-
Reisinger Museum and to the Bauhaus Archiv in Berlin.
Walter and Ise Gropius promoted modern architecture and Bauhaus principles of design by
using their family home as a teaching tool. Gropius believed that his house, although built in
1938, embodied the qualities of simplicity, functionality, economy, geometry, and aesthetic
beauty that could transcend time and could be applied to the architecture of today. Mrs.
Gropius was determined to carry this educational opportunity forward by turning her home
into a museum.
Ise chose to give the property to the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities,
now Historic New England, in 1974, but continued to live in the house until her death in
1983. She recognized that the Gropius House was, and continues to be, a New England house
and an important part of the New England architectural continuum. In a charming anecdote,
Mrs. Gropius was always amused to think of the Gropius House as a New England
“antiquity” as years before it had been barely tolerated as a curiosity, or worse, an
abomination.
In 1974, with active support and participation from Mrs. Gropius, Historic New
England began to secure the preservation of the Gropius House for its future and to allow it to
be kept open for study. The stewardship of Historic New England insured that the Gropiuses's
vision of preservation and education would carry on into the future.
1974-Present: Becoming a Museum
Two years after Mrs. Gropius’s death in 1983, the Gropius House opened as a historic house
museum. In addition to the regular maintenance, several restoration projects have been
undertaken to preserve the Gropius House. These include the restoration of the metal
casement windows, a Save America’s Treasures Grant for the apple orchard and Japanese
garden restoration in 2000-2001, construction of a visitor center in the garage in 1997, and
ongoing interior preservation projects.
The Gropius House was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2002, and is located in
the Woods End Road historic district. It is open year-round and hosts several events and
programs throughout the year. A popular favorite is the Evening at Gropius, a program in
which visitors receive an in-depth introduction to Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus and his early
work, then take a tour of the house with special evening lighting, including the dramatic dark
dining room effect.
The Gropius House remains today what Mrs. Gropius called “a happy amalgam” of the New
England vernacular and the Bauhaus spirit.
The Bauhaus style...
The impact of the horrible experiences in the First World War, poverty and inflation created a new
consciousness, which influenced strongly Design, Architecture and Art. This was the
age of the Bauhaus, a movement which was a reaction to social change and which
aspired an aesthetic relevance. The "New Man" became the ideal, a concept that
also expressed itself in living. The Bauhaus Design showed a purism with emphasis
on straight edges and smooth, slim forms. The rooms were sparsely furnished, but
filled with hygienic freshness. Superfluous features were taboo. Shining steel was
discovered as a material for furniture
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The forms in the Bauhaus furniture are frequently simple and light without decorative additive.
Frequently used are: steel, glass, bent wood, leathers and plastic. The most attentive colors are:
generally black, white, brown, grey and chromium. Sometimes the primary colors of the furniture
are used sporadically to accentuate and to give entirely the less dark appearance. Bauhaus was
the preamble of modernism and functionalism.
Bauhaus is the famous German school of design that had inestimable influence on
modern architecture, the industrial and graphic arts, and theater design. It was
founded in 1919 by the architect Walter Gropius in Weimar as a merger of an art
academy and an arts and crafts school. The Bauhaus was based on the principles of
the 19th-century English designer William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement
that art should meet the needs of society and that no distinction should be made
between fine arts and practical crafts. It also depended on the more forward-looking
principles that modern art and architecture must be responsive to the needs and influences of the
modern industrial world and that good designs must pass the test of both aesthetic standards and
sound engineering. Thus, classes were offered in crafts, typography, and commercial and industrial
design, as well as in sculpture, painting, and architecture. The Bauhaus style, also known as the
International Style, was marked by the absence of ornament and ostentatious facades and by
harmony between function and the artistic and technical means employed.
In 1925 the Bauhaus was moved into a group of starkly rectangular glass and
concrete buildings in Dessau that were especially designed for it by Gropius. In
Dessau the Bauhaus style became more strictly functional with greater emphasis on
showing the beauty and suitability of basic, unadorned materials. Other outstanding
architects and artists who were on the staff of the Bauhaus included the Swiss painter
Paul Klee, the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, the Hungarian painter and
designer László Moholy-Nagy (who founded the Chicago Institute of Design on the
principles of the Bauhaus), the American painter Lyonel Feininger, and the German
painter Oskar Schlemmer.
Gropius resigned as director of the Bauhaus in 1928, and Hannes Meyer (1889-1954) replaced him.
Meyer held the position until 1930, when the school came under the direction of the architect Ludwig
Mies van der Rohe, who moved it to Berlin in 1932. By 1933, when the school was closed by the
Nazis, its principles and work were known worldwide. Many of its faculty immigrated to the U.S., where
the Bauhaus teachings came to dominate art and architecture for decades and strongly contributed to
the architectural style known as International Style.
Bauhaus Architecture
By Yael Zisling
There are those who describe Tel Aviv as a drab, gray city of concrete. However, if you look
beyond the worn buildings’ façade you will encounter the largest collection of buildings
whose architectural roots can be traced to the Bauhaus architecture of Germany. It is perhaps
ironic that Tel Aviv houses the largest number of buildings designed in an architectural style
that developed in pre-Nazi Germany, a style that came to an abrupt end in Germany, with the
Nazi’s rise to power. This architectural style is so prevalent in Tel Aviv that it almost seems
as though it were a local style, but it is not.
There are a number of characteristics to the Bauhaus/International Style of architecture:

1) It shuns ornamentation and favors functionality
2) Uses asymmetry and regularity versus symmetry
3) It grasps architecture in terms of space versus mass
Bauhaus buildings are usually cubic, favor right angles, (although some feature rounded
corners and balconies); they have smooth facades and an open floor plan.
Bauhaus architecture, whose founding father was Walter Gropius, developed in Germany in
the 1920s and later in the U.S., in the 1930s. The American form of this architectural style
was dubbed the International Style after Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and other leaders of
Bauhaus migrated to the U.S., with the Nazi’s growing influence. The Bauhaus school in
Dessau was closed on April 11th, 1933, by the police, at the insistence of the National
Socialist government.
Purists assert that Bauhaus architecture can only refer to buildings in Germany and anything
else should be termed International Style – while others use the terms interchangeably (as is
the case in this issue of Gems in Israel). The term International Style was really adopted after
the publication of a book that coincided with a 1932 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art
in New York. The book, by historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock and architect Philip Johnson,
was called, The International Style.
Bauhaus architecture was concerned with the social aspects of design and with the creation of
a new form of social housing for workers. This may be just another one of the reasons it was
embraced in the newly evolving city of Tel Aviv, at a time when socialist ideas were so
prevalent. This style of architecture came about (in part) because of new engineering
developments that allowed the walls to be built around steel or iron frames. This meant that
walls no longer had to support the structure, but only enveloped it – from the outside.
The teachings at the Bauhaus school of design, which functioned from 1919 to 1933 (first in
Weimar and later in Dessau), were greatly influenced by the machine age. The school's aim
was to fuse all the arts under the concept of design. The school had 700 students and was
known for requiring its students to forget everything they had learned to date.
Gropius engaged some of the best artists of the day, Paul Klee, Vassily Kandinsky, Lyonel
Feininger, and Oscar Schlemmer, to name a few, to teach at the school. Influential Bauhaus
architects were Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Hannes Meyer and Le Corbusier to name
a few.
The International Style was a decidedly different type of architecture that did not rely on the
architecture of the past, but aimed to establish a new, modern style. In Tel Aviv, Bauhaus
architecture gained a foothold, as there was no real entrenched architectural style. While this
style of architecture can also be found in Haifa and Jerusalem as well as in many kibbutzim, it
is most prevalent in Tel Aviv.
Bauhaus in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv has the largest collection of buildings built in the International Style, anywhere in
the world. Bauhaus architecture flourished in Tel Aviv (as elsewhere in the country) in the
1930’s due in great part to the fact that 17 former Bauhaus students, worked locally as
architects.
Arieh Sharon, Dov Carmi, Zeev Rechter, Pinchas Hueth, Josef Neufeld, Genia Averbuch
Richard Kauffmann and Erich Mendelsohn are just some of the architects, who contributed to
the local abundance of Bauhaus architecture. Sharon, (no relation to the current prime
minister) was known for his cooperative workers’ dwellings in Tel Aviv, work on many of the
country’s hospitals and his early beginnings in kibbutz Gan Shmuel. Averbuch is best known
because in 1934, at 25, she won second prize (no first prize was given), in the competition to
design Dizengoff Circle, in memory of Zina Dizengoff, Meir Dizengoff’s wife. While
Mendelsohn designed the private residence of the country’s first president, Dr. Chaim
Weizmann.
Between the First and Second World Wars, there was a great building momentum in Tel
Aviv, because of the growing waves of immigration from Europe. Buildings that now show
their age were once painted white (or beige). The city had many ‘white’ buildings, which
came to be associated with the International Style (even though white exteriors are not really
one its characteristics). Nevertheless, that is the source of the city’s nickname of “The White
City.”
Tel Aviv has the largest number of cooperative workers’ apartments in the country. The aim
was to provide residents with as much equality in living quarters. These blocks of apartments,
operated almost as self-contained units. Residents had a variety of services right in the
buildings, including kindergarten, post office, convenience store, laundry etc. Additionally, a
plot of land was set aside, so that residents could grow their own vegetables. Having a
‘connection to the land’ was viewed as extremely important. An example of such a
cooperative unit can be seen at the corner of Frishman, Dov Hoz and Frug streets. This block
of buildings also served as headquarters of the Haganah.
There are over 1500 International Style buildings in Tel Aviv, slated for
preservation/restoration. Looking at some of the buildings already restored, one can only
imagine how beautiful and modern the city must have looked in the 1930’s.
Some Local Bauhaus Adaptations
Smaller Windows
Some of the key elements of Bauhaus architecture had to be adapted to the local environment,
primarily because of the climate. One of the key elements of the International Style in Europe
was a large window. However, in a hot climate – large windows that let great amounts of light
shine into the rooms – do not make sense. Locally, glass was used sparingly and long, narrow,
horizontal windows are visible on many of the Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv. On some
buildings, you can also see long narrow balconies, which in many cases have now been
enclosed. This was an adaptation of the long narrow windows.
The horizontal ‘strip window’ was a signature characteristic of Le Corbusier. A number of

local architects worked in Le Corbusier’s office in Paris and were greatly influenced by his
style.
Stilt Columns (Pilotis)
Another element used by Le Corbusier was stilt-type columns (pilotis), which raised the
buildings off street level thereby creating room for a green garden area while providing
greater airflow.
The first building built in this manner in Tel Aviv, was Beit Engel. It was built in 1933, by
Zeev Rechter, and is located at 84 Rothschild Boulevard, and the corner of Ma’zeh Street.
Rothschild Boulevard is an excellent area to see a great variety of Bauhaus buildings
(although quite a few are in dire need of restoration). If you go to see the Engel building today
you will notice that the ‘open’ area created by the stilt columns has been enclosed. Rechter
fought for two years to get approval to build on these stilt columns. This type of building
became quite common, in Tel Aviv and the surrounding cities, although by the 1940’s fewer
buildings were being built in this manner in Tel Aviv.
Flat Roofs
Another of the local features of the Bauhaus buildings, are the flat roofs, as opposed to the
typical shingled and slanted roofs, prevalent in the European buidlings. The roofs served all of
a buidlings’ residents. While roofs in most cases did not feature gardens, (as envisioned by Le
Corbusier), they were a place where social events were held and where the laundry room was
often located as well.
Reinforced Concrete
The local building technology of the time was not advanced. Reinforced concrete was first
used (in Tel Aviv) in 1912. Later it became widely used, because it was easy to work with and
did not require skilled workers.
Bauhaus architecture became common in Tel Aviv of the 1930’s for a variety of reasons.
There was a strong tendency toward modernization. Architects, who worked locally, had
strong ties to the European architectural developments of the day. There was also a need to
build cheaply and quickly because of the growing metropolis.
Tel Aviv is the only city in the world, built mostly, in the International Style. In fact, over the
years a kind of reactionary ‘anti-Bauhaus’ sentiment, developed.
Saving and restoring many of the city’s wonderful old buildings is fraught with legal and
economic constraints that often make conservation, less than desirable for the building’s
owners. One can only hope that the coming years will bring solutions that will enable the
preservation of more of Tel Aviv’s Bauhaus architecture.

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Walter Gropius

Bauhaus building, Dessau, Germany

Walter, Ise, and Ati Gropius at the Sandy

Gropius House, Lincoln

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Another view of the Gropius House

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First floor hallway

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Screened porch, cont.

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Ati's room, cont.

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This “womb” chair was designed by Finnish architect Eero

A National Historic Landmark

More images of Gropius House

Please visit nearby Codman Estate.

Gropius House History

1969-1974: Gropius’s Intent

1974-present: Becoming a Museum

1919-1937: Bauhaus to Harvard

Walter Gropius accepted the appointment as professor and subsequently chairman of the

1938-1969: A Family Home in Lincoln

New social connections brought an extraordinary opportunity. Henry Shepley, an architect

1974-Present: Becoming a Museum

The Bauhaus style...

There are a number of characteristics to the Bauhaus/International Style of architecture:

Bauhaus in Tel Aviv

Some Local Bauhaus Adaptations

The horizontal ‘strip window’ was a signature characteristic of Le Corbusier. A number of

Stilt Columns (Pilotis)

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