Walter Gropius (Gropius Walter)

(1883-1969)
Born May 18, 1883 in Berlin, studied at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin and Munich. Great importance for its future work was the work in the studio P. Behrens, one of whom was also a student of Le Corbusier. Pan-European fame brought Gropius building a shoe factory 'Fagus' in Alfeld (1911-1916) and factory complex in Cologne (1914). After the First World War, he received an invitation to lead the Art School in Weimar. Gropius updated the curriculum and expanded the school, which received in 1919 the name 'Bauhaus', and in 1925 moved it in Dessau.
One of the best works of Gropius is built by him in 1925-1926 Bauhaus building in Dessau. With the almost complete absence of decoration clearly identified constructive basis structures. These features are characteristic of the modern functionalist. Bauhaus became an international art center. Gropius sought to introduce there a universal flexible curriculum that best contributed to the development of individual creative abilities of students. In 1928, Gropius resigned as director of the Bauhaus and moved to Berlin. In the late 1920's - early 1930's, after building the theater in Jena, his attention was drawn primarily for industrial facilities, cheap housing for workers, cooperative stores and houses. Style, . where he worked Gropius, . had little in common with the neoclassical - the official architectural style of Nazi Germany, . so in 1934 he was forced into exile in London, . where, together with M. Fry founded his own company, . existed for three years,
. In 1937, Gropius moved to the United States and became a professor and chair of architecture at Harvard University, where he taught until 1952. Among his works are 1940-1960-ies should be noted Graduate Center at Harvard University in Cambridge (Massachusetts) (1949-1950), . university building in Baghdad (1960), . U.S. embassy in Athens (1957-1961) and skyscraper Airlines 'American Airlines' in New York (1958-1963),
. Gropius wrote several books: Bauhaus 1919-1928 (1938), Total Architecture (1955) and Apollo in the world of democracy (1967). Gropius died in Boston, July 5, 1969. See. also Bauhaus.