Walter Gropius

German-American architect (1883–1969), founder of the Bauhaus and one of the pioneers of modern architecture.

Gropius opened the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1919 on the principle of uniting art, craft, and industrial technology, then carried the modernist program to America as chair of architecture at Harvard — shaping how design was taught for generations.

Relationship to Fuller

Relationship: contemporary. Gropius was the senior figure of the design-education movement in which R. Buckminster Fuller operated. The Bauhaus program of integrating art and technology — carried to America by Gropius at Harvard and by Moholy-Nagy at the Institute of Design where Fuller taught — defined the intellectual and institutional world Fuller shared and, in his own idiom, extended toward comprehensive design science. A contemporary of Fuller's design generation, Gropius represents the European modernist lineage running parallel to Fuller's American one.

See Also

• Josef Albers (Josef Albers) — Bauhaus master who carried the school's teaching to America
• László Moholy-Nagy (László Moholy-Nagy) — his fellow Bauhaus master who founded the Institute of Design

Sources

• 10 Books Featuring Buckminster Fuller (source reference) — situates Gropius among the modern design figures around Fuller