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the other, he reasoned; rather, the two worlds
could mutually build upon and benefit each
another. "Architects, sculptors, painters,"
Gropius instructed in The Proclamation of the
Bauhaus (1919): "we must all turn to the crafts."
Gropius did more than propound, he created
a powerful incubator for this to happen. And
during its 14-year, often rocky run the Bauhaus
would permanently change the worlds of archi-
tecture, fine art and design. Translated as the
"house of building," the school Grobius founded
ran from 1919 until 1933, and was first located
in the city of Weimar, then in Dessau and Berlin
before finally closing under pressure from the
ogether let us conceive and create
the new building of the future, which
will embrace architecture and
sculpture and painting in one unity
and which will rise one day toward
heaven from the hands of a million
workers like the crystal symbol of a new
faith. Walter Gropius, in The Proclamation of
the Bauhaus (1919)
It was fervid prose for a serious man—Walter
Gropius, an architect and thinker in the early
20th century intent on training a new generation
of creative workers who were fluent in synthe-
sizing art and technology. He would achieve
this, perhaps beyond his wildest dreams. His
influence would extend for eons beyond the
century in which he lived—and well beyond
his native Germany.
At the time, at issue was how to maintain the
ages-old rigor of fine craftsmanship in the face
of the increasingly industrialized world. The
answer for Gropius wasn't to diminish one for
Above: Gropius House, 1938, an important early example of International Style architecture, and the personal residence of Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius. Credit: Photo from Historic American Buildings
Survey (HABS), MA-1228, Creator, Walter Gropius, and Marcel Breuer, Boucher, Jack E, photographer. Photograph. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS MASS,9-LIN,16-
Inset: A photograph of Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, inlaid in a 1968 poster with Bauhaus-inspired graphics. Credit: Poster by Muriel Cooper. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division,
https://www.loc.gov/item/2002698297/
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