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WALTER ADOLPH GEORG GROPIUS (1883-1969)
Gropius studied at the Colleges of Technology of Berlin and Munich, working under Peter Behrens from 1907-1910. He served in WWI and was almost killed. Gropius founded the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany, one of the most influential architecture and design schools of the 20th century. Students at this exceptional school not only studied architecture but made everything from buildings to the furniture and art.
Gropius and his Bauhaus staff around 1929
The rise of Hitler in the 1930s drove Gropius out of Germany, first to London working for Maxwell Fry, and later in 1937 to Cambridge MA where he taught at Harvard and MIT. Working with former student Marcel Breuer, he designed many significant projects. Their American post-war houses were produced for a largely homogenous clientele: financially well-off young couples, open to new ideas and styles, who wanted to move out from cities into nearby countryside and build a home for themselves and their children. The houses designed by Breuer in the 1940s and 1950s exhibit a fixed typology and a strict design system. This was based on the additive and clearly visible combination of self-contained boxes, the technique they developed back in Europe. Gropius and Breuer eventually parted ways. In 1944, Gropius became a US citizen.
In 1945, he founded The Architects' Collaborative (TAC) based in Cambridge MA with Norman C. Fletcher, Jean B. Fletcher, John C. Harkness, Sarah P. Harkness, Robert S. MacMillan, Louis A. MacMillan, and Benjamin C. Thompson. TAC would become one of the most well-known and respected design firms in the world. Sadly, it went bankrupt in 1995 after many major projects in Iraq were cancelled due to the US-Iraq conflict. Along with Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Marcel Breuer, Gropius was one of the most influential modern architects of the 20th century. One of his last buildings was the Playboy Club in London.
Interview by John Peter
Subdivisions: Five Fields * Six Moon Hill
1922 - The Adolf Sommerfeld House, Limonenstraße 30, 12203 Berlin, Germany. Commissioned in 1920. Glazing, lighting, carvings and metal screens all came from the Bauhaus shops. Designed with Adolph Meyer. Destroyed around 1945.
1924 - The Felix Auerbach House, Schaefferstraße 9, 07743 Jena, Germany. The interior was designed by Bauhaus-student Alfred Meyer. Because no major additions or changes were made since completion, the house was practically in original condition and was carefully renovated in the 1990s. Sold.
1926 - The Walter Gropius House, Ebertallee 59, 06846 Dessau-Roßlau, Germany. One of the four Masters Houses for Bauhaus faculty. Designed with Marcel Breuer. Destroyed in WWII. The Emmers bought the lot and built a decidedly anti-Modernist house with a pitched roof, destroyed 2008. An abstract interpretation of the original (not a rebuild) was completed in 2014 by architects Bruno Fioretti Marquez, bottom photo.
1926 - The Lazslo and Lucia Moholy-Nagy Apartment and Studio, aka the Lyonel Feininger House, Ebertallee 69/71, 06846 Dessau-Roßlau, Germany. One of the four Masters Houses for Bauhaus faculty. The Moholy-Nagys moved out in 1928; Josef Albers and his wife were the next tenants. Designed with Marcel Breuer. Destroyed in WWII. An abstract interpretation of the original (not a rebuild) was completed in 2014 by architects Bruno Fioretti Marquez, bottom photo.
1926 - The Wassily Kandinsky/Paul Klee House, Ebertallee 69/71, 06846 Dessau-Roßlau, Germany. Designed with Marcel Breuer. One of the four Masters Houses for Bauhaus faculty. Beautifully restored in 2019. Open for tours.
1926 - The George Muche and Oskar/Tut Schlemmer House, Ebertallee 65/67, 06846 Dessau-Roßlau, Germany. Designed with Marcel Breuer. One of the four Master Houses for Bauhaus faculty.
1928 - The Kurt and Gertrude Lewin Remodel, Fischerhüttenstrabe 106, 14163 Berlin, Germany. Commissioned in 1928. Originally designed with Peter Behrens.
In 1930, the Lewins hired Gropius and Marcel Breuer for another remodel the house and custom furniture for the dining room, study, bedrooms and kitchen.
1929 - The Hans and Therese Zuckerkandl House, Weinbergstraße 4A, 07743 Jena, Germany.
1933 - The Gass/Bahner House, Tucholskyhöhe 11, 14532 Kleinmachnow, Germany. Commissioned in 1932. Sold to architect Walter Schützler. Listed as a national monument.
1933 - The Maurer House, Am Erlenbusch 14a, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
1935 - The E. W. and Benn Levy House, 66 Old Church Street, Chelsea, London, England. Designed with Maxwell Fry. For sale in 2018.
1937 - The Jack and Frances Donaldson House, aka the Wood House, Upper Green Road, Shipbourne, Tonbridge and Malling, Kent, UK. Designed with Maxwell Fry. Sold several times. Listed in 1984 on the National Heritage List for England. Sold in 2016 to Richard Everett Consultancy Ltd.
1938 - The Walter and Ise Frank Gropius House, 68 Baker Bridge Road, Lincoln MA. Commissioned in 1937, his first house in the US. Gropius' benefactor, Helen Storrow, offered him the site and the capital and was so pleased with the result that she allocated house sites to four other professors, two of which Gropius designed homes. The house caused a huge sensation. Gropius died in 1969. His wife, Ise Frank Gropius, deeded the property to the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA) in 1980. She continued to live in the house until shortly before her death in 1983. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. Featured in GA Houses 25. Declared a National Landmark in 2000. B/W photos by David Bohl; color photos by Jack K. Marshall. Open to the public for tours.
1938 - The John Hagerty House, aka the Josephine Hagerty House, 357 Atlantic Avenue, Cohasset MA. Commissioned in 1937 for John Hagerty as a summer house for the client's mother. Designed with Marcel Breuer. Photos by Dean Kaufman. Sold three times; with several renovations. The fifth owner was a Ms. Sasseen who bought it in 2001 and was featured in DWELL. Sold in 2001 to Janice Reiter. Sold in 2012 to Janice Sasseen and Janea Gubotosi.
1939 - The Marcel Breuer House I, 5 Woods End Road, Lincoln MA. Commissioned in 1938. Designed with Marcel Breuer. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. Sold in 1998 to Mark and Myrna Goldstein. Second photo, from left: Herbert Bayer (back of head), Marian Willard (back), Ise Gropius (center), and Ati Gropius (above), circa 1940. Right: Constance Breuer (at railing), Dottie Noyes (on bookshelf), and Christopher Tunnard, 1940. Deeded in 2024 to Woods Ends Road Revocable Trust / Mark Goldstein.
1939 - The James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford House, 10 Woods End Road, Lincoln MA. Commissioned in 1938. Marcel Breuer only participated a little bit on the design, if at all. The original owners were authors of many books on Modernist architecture. Featured in Architectural Record, March 1940. Katherine Morrow Ford moved to New York City in the 1950s and died by suicide in 1959. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. Sold in 1971 to Karoly and Judith Balogh. B/W photo by Ezra Stoller/ESTO. Deeded to 10 Woods Road Revocable Trust.
1940 - The Robert and Cecelia Frank Residence, 96 Woodland Road, Pittsburgh PA. Designed with Marcel Breuer. Commissioned in 1939 after the Franks visited Gropius' house in Lincoln MA. 12,000-sf, complete with a dining room that seats 24 people, curved glass facade, five terraces, nine bedrooms (three of which are servants quarters), 13 bathrooms and a 40x20 indoor swimming pool. Deeded to their son, Alan I. W. Frank. Color photos by Joe Marinaro and Pete Copeland. BW photos by Ezra Stoller/ESTO. Frank died in 2023.
1940 - The Chamberlain Cottage, 68 Moore Road, Wayland MA. Designed with Marcel Breuer. Located on considerable acreage. Renovated and expanded. Part of the movie The Surrogates was filmed there. Sold in 2005 to Perry and Amy Beckett. Top photo by Ezra Stoller/ESTO. Deeded to Perry Beckett/68 Moore Road.
1941 - The Abele House, 325 Winter Street, Framingham MA. Designed with Marcel Breuer. Photos by Ezra Stoller/ESTO. Sold in 1992. Sold in 1995 to Oded Feingold and Andrea Haber.
1951 - 861 Nichols Canyon Road, Los Angeles CA.
Location unknown.
From 1942 to 1951, Gropius and Konrad Wachsman designed prefabricated houses after WWII for General Panel Corporation. Like Lustron, this style lasted only a few years. General Panel houses consisted of wall and ceiling units that could be adjusted without structurally changing the building. Only a few hundred were built, including these two in California. Bottom photo by Ezra Stoller/ESTO.
1944 - The Aluminum City Terrace Housing Project, East Hills Drive, New Kensington PA. Located near Pittsburgh. Designed with Marcel Breuer. Built by the federal government to house defense workers during World War II. As of 2012, it continues to operate as a successful cooperative.
1946 - The George and Ethel Kaplan House, 12 Drumlin Road, Newton MA. Sold in 2002 to Irina and Doron Shaar.
1948 - The Clarence and Jeanette Howlett House, 69 Pinehurst Road, Belmont MA. Designed with Benjamin Thompson of The Architects Collaborative. Sold in 1960 to Pierre Du Pont IV. Sold in 1963 to Donald Shively. Sold in 1965 to Shepard and Evelyn Shapiro. Sold in 1975 to Elizabeth and Graham Allison, still owners as of 2022.
1949 - The Student Housing and Graduate Complex, Harvard Law School, Boston MA. Commissioned in 1947. Five buildings: Story, Shaw, Holmes, Ames, Dane. Blackstone Block Architects did renovations including exterior access improvements, accessible dorm rooms, redesigned bathrooms. Still standing as of 2020.
1949 - The Charles C. and Olive Peter Vacation House, 483 Eel River Road, Osterville MA. Former address Wianno MA. Project architect, Lewis McMillen. Built by Herbert Stringer. Featured in TIME Magazine, 8/15/1949 (Neutra was on the cover); Holiday Magazine, August 1950. Photos by Fred Stone. Sold at least once. There has been an addition, bottom photo. Sold to Gail Canzano in 1979, still owner as of 2023.
1950 - The Spencer and Francis Field House, aka House in Cape Cod, 500 Wings Neck Road, Bourne MA. Project architect, Robert MacMillan. Part of the estate at 502 Wings Neck Road, designed in 1984 by Cambridge Seven. Featured in House+Home, August 1952. Built by Cape Cod Construction. Deeded to heirs. Sold in 2015 to Eric Erlingsson.
1953 - The Wohnhaus Stichweh, Hannover, Germany. Commissioned in 1952. Occupied by the German Association of Architects Lower Saxony.
1954 - The John Bunker House, 607 Main Street, Concord MA. Gropius was involved but the lead architect was John (Chip) Harkness. Sold in 1960 to George Jr. and Alice Shea Valley. Sold in 2008 to Anthony D. and Mary Mallows. They renovated it back to its original exterior, adding a second floor studio above the existing two-car garage, plus new floors, walls, ceilings, plumbing and mechanical systems. Sold in 2015 to Judith Bramhill. Video (YouTube).
1954 - The David Pickman House, 220 Dudley Road, Bedford MA. 13 acres. Overlooks the Concord River. Built by Stanley I. Phalen; B/W photos by Louie Reens. Featured in Architectural Record Houses of 1957. Sold in 2002 to Madeleine Altmann and Andreas Uthoff.
1959 - The Carl and Dorotea Murchison Residence, 2 Commercial Street, Provincetown MA. 3.5 acres. Replaced a house that burned down in 1956. Engineers, Reardon and Turner; built by Anderson and Spinny; interiors by Design Research; photos by Joseph Molitor. The entrance of teak evoked a Japanese temple. A tube television is hidden, like a prop from an early James Bond movie, behind a cabinet door. The large outdoor pool, with a view of Provincetown Harbor, was once the scene of large, swinging parties. Featured in Architectural Record Houses of 1959. Left in 1981 to their son, Powell. Sold in 2008 to Cliff Schorer, with the house preserved but the land divided into eight new house lots. Schorer built a house designed by Hariri and Hariri. Gropius house sold to Tylden B. Dowell.
1961 - The Mary Griggs Burke and Jackson Burke House, aka Holly Pond, 145 Centre Island Road, Oyster Bay NY. Commissioned in 1953. Project architect, Benjamin Thompson. Renovated in 1970 by Shogo J. Myaido. sold in 2015 to Clive Holmes and Reeta Hudani. Vacant for years.
1961 - The Holcombe and Ethelind Elbert Austin House, 20 Elm Street, Taunton MA. Featured in Architectural Record Houses of 1961. Project architect, Alex Cvijanovic; built by H. Sargent, Swanson Construction; B/W photos by Joseph Molitor. Eventually sold to Wheaton College, which used it as a guest house.
Sources include: Boston Globe; Vitra Design Museum; Six Moon Hill on Wikipedia.