Though he was described by architectural historians as "humorless," Walter Gropius "was in fact a charismatic figure," according to The Guardian's Fiona MacCarthy. His life and career are shrouded in myths of solemnity and passionlessness, though the fact remains that he imparted a significant and long-lasting passion towards founding the Bauhaus as well as his own career as an architect.
Gropius was poetic in his writing (as MacCarthy highlights a passage from his Bauhaus Manifesto: “Together let us desire, conceive, and create the new structure of the future, which will one day rise toward heaven from the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith”), expressionist in his early work, and an advocate of healthy debate in his fabled school of art and design. And while Tom Wolfe famously criticized the architect as a champion of the modern high rise, MacCarthy points out that Gropius was not only one of many architects that believed in the potential of building vertically, but that he had also openly espoused humanist design in daily practice.
Time has a habit of mythologizing the misunderstood; the legacy of Walter Gropius is worth a reassessment, not least for the fact that the design principles of the school he founded have so positively affected our own today.
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A funny memory of WG told by Ise, his wife to us when few of us visited her in 1980.
"the design principles of the school he founded have so positively affected our own today."
How so?
Here is how Groupius defined his design principles in 1926:
"The standardization of structural elements will have the wholesome result of lending a common character to new residential buildings and neighborhoods. Monotony is not to be feared as long as the basic demand is met that only structural elements are are standardised while the contours of the building so built will vary. Well-manufactured materials and clear, simple design of these mass-produced elements will guarantee the unified beauty of the resulting buildings."
From a modern, scientific point of view, did the results of Bauhaus design principles produce the unified beauty he claimed?
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