Friday 10th May saw the initial hand-in for the Cultural Context Elective Essay. I chose the topic centering on Walter Gropius; his concepts and subsequent architectonic implementations. This is an excerpt with images and quotations:
Gropius first had formal construction training at the Technische Hochschule (Technical University) in Munich during 1903 and then transferred to Charlottenburg in 1905 (Lupfer, G. and Sigel, P. 2004 pg 7). Staying for another two years, he left prematurely without a degree. While Gropius’s brief foray into further education seems to align with his almost-predetermined path in the métier of design, his withdrawal so close to the finishing line demonstrates a disregard for the style of teaching of the day. The departure was in order to pursue an offer of employment from Peter Behrens, a prosperous and distinguished architect who was already making a name for himself as an architectonic pioneer. Behrens and Gropius jointly realised the essence of the shifting architectural tide in the AEG turbine factory, Berlin – breaking new ground that took reference from the Crystal Palace, London 1851 as well as the Kaufhaus Tietz store, Berlin, 1901 (Flickr 2013).
It was Behrens who first introduced me to logical and systematic coordination in the handling of architectural problems. In the course of my active association with the important schemes on which he was then engaged… my own ideas began to crystallise as to what the essential nature of the building ought to be
Walter Gropius in The New Architecture and the Bauhaus (British publication) 1935: pg47
While
working under Behrens, Gropius encountered other architectural names that were
to become synonymous with the transformation in the architectural weltanschauung including Ludwig Mies van
der Rohe and Le Corbusier. Another notable designer that Gropius met was Adolf
Meyer. Despite being less of a household name than the aforementioned German
and French designers, Meyer would become the salient collaborator in this
period of Gropius’s career as they together designed and executed their first
major commission, the Fagus factory, built in 1911 and substantially expanded
in 1913. Although inheriting the plan layout from the previously employed
architect (the eminent factory designer Eduard Werner who, according to the
client Carl Benscheidt, “always built according to the same model” (Jaeggi, A.
2000 pg 17)), Gropius and Meyer were tasked with designing a façade to serve as
an “effective platform for advertising” (Jaeggi, A 2000 pg 19) due to its prominent
position beside the train line.
(above) Figures: 1-6. The Fagus factory, Alfeld on the Leine, Lower Saxony, Germany. Constructed for Carl Benscheidt and designed by Eduard Werner (space plan) with Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer (elevations). Original building completed in 1911 and extended in 1913: design work continued until 1925 (Archdaily 2018). The design was ground-breaking in its application of steelwork and glazing. The large panels seemingly float, disconnected from any supporting structure, especially at their corners, the detail of which was dubbed “the difficult corner” by the client, Carl Benscheidt (Jaeggi, A. 2000)
The three designers worked in continued collaboration until the outbreak of World War I in July 1914. Gropius was drafted and served initially as a Sergeant Major in the Vosges Mountains, Alsace with the 9th Wandsbeck Hussars. Soon being promoted to Lieutenant, thereafter injured by an exploding mortar grenade, Gropius fought for four years under the German Empire, and was awarded the Iron Cross twice – the first time it was given in his regiment (MacCarthy F. 2019). The blossoming technological advancements of the Grunderzeit were harrowingly employed to slaughter millions which Gropius would have seen first-hand, evident in his letters from the Front. In addition to the comprehension of this new machine power now capable by the nations of the world, Gropius was shocked by the ephemeral nature of human life (including his own).
…we could finally leave this terrible forest… But what losses. I got out of it alive after two dreadful days and nights without sleep, steadily buzzed by bullets, and cries of the wounded and dying in my ears
Walter Gropius in a letter from the Front to Alma Mahler reproduced in Walter Gropius: Visionary Founder of the Bauhaus 2019: pg78
The full consciousness of my own responsibility in advancing ideas based on my own reflections only came home to me as a result of the war, in which these theoretical premises first took definitive shape
Walter Gropius in The New Architecture and the Bauhaus (British publication) 1935: pg48
By
the year of 1918 the Great War had come to a dour defeat for the former German
Empire and Walter Gropius resumed his architectural career. The sense of
optimism that pervaded every level of public thinking before the war was
replaced with a painstaking effort to defend the future against such an
atrocity. Gropius had already been a member of the Deutscher Werkbund since 1910, a body of artists established in
1907 by his previous employer Peter Behrens, to promote the ideals of
craftsmanship and its relationship with mass production. Over the year
following the conclusion of the war to end all wars, Gropius would join
correspondence with an array of diverse designers in addition to those already
part of the Werkbund. Coming from a
range of backgrounds and disciplines, a customary theme linking both the individuals
and the associations was the rekindled utopian ambition. The yearning for
complete protection from the threat of another war on such a gross scale was
freshly imprinted on the returning men and women and led to the formation of numerous
unions, correspondence groups and artistic bodies.
Gropius
became a founding member of the Arbeitsrat
fur Kunst (Work Council for Art) in 1918, a union composed to utilise art
as a political means to achieve a new society. It was set up and led by Bruno
Taut (a pacifist during the war who spent the period developing theoretical
Elysian master-planned architecture), a position entrusted to Gropius in
February 1919 who altered the ethos slightly away from the endeavour of utopia
and towards “the unification of the arts under the wings of great architecture”
(Lupfer, G. and Sigel, P. 2004 pg 9). Gropius continued his deep-rooted
objective of collaboration in his contribution towards the Novembergruppe (November Group) in 1918 and the Glaserne Kette (Crystal Chain) in 1919,
an association and correspondence with expressionist, socialist, utopian
thrusts, all seeking a superior future.
That state of affairs is over at last. A new conception of buildings, based on realities, has emerged…
Walter Gropius in The New Architecture and the Bauhaus (British publication) 1935: pg24
Later
in 1919, Gropius commenced the paragon effort that he would be come to be known
by: the founding of the Bauhaus.
While the establishment of the institution is more a result of previous
influences, it is imperative to mention some of the masters that would have
undoubtedly shaped Gropius’s thinking.
Gropius selected nine artistic masters to be appointed to teaching positions while the Bauhaus was situated in Weimar, one sculptor and eight painters of which Johannes Itten, Georg Muche, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky were just a few remarkable names (Droste, M. 2006 pg 25). These academics were employed in addition to a group of technical staff who would operate the workshops, splitting the staff into two inexact groups, the “esoterics” and the “technicals”.
Certain members of the esoterics (Itten and Muche) were followers of the Mazdaznan religion and implemented a syllabus with nuances of spiritualism (so much so that they composed a chant “Itten, Muche, Mazdaznan” that was said to echo down the corridors of the former art school (MacCarthy, F. 2019 pg 137)). The characteristics of the divine influence can also be seen in the growing Lebensreform (again, mainly promoted by Itten and Muche) – the “life reform” – a liberal campaign promoting vegetarianism, nudism, sexual freedom and neuropathic medicine and highly critical of the growth of metropolitan areas and industry (Jefferies, M. 2003). In many ways, this attempt to give the Bauhaus a new direction had the opposite effect: Itten left under pressure in the spring of 1923 and Muche did the same in 1927, joining Itten who had set up the Modern Art School of Berlin while Gropius further assured that a secular, industry-driven handicraft education would be the primary focus at the Bauhaus. It was obvious that the inclusion of these academics were set to cause friction even before they were employed yet despite this, Gropius had a distinct appreciation of opinions that differed, even opposed, his own. The extremity of Mazdaznan was nonetheless, too great a fundamental change.
…that to make this possible (a new, ground-breaking school) would require a whole staff of collaborators and assistants: men who would work, not automatically as an orchestra obeys its conductor’s baton, but independently, although in close cooperation, to further a common cause
Walter Gropius in The New Architecture and the Bauhaus (British publication) 1935: pg51
…he mixed up his teaching with Mazdaznan and as I did not want to have that half-religious approach incorporated in our education I caused him to leave
Walter Gropius in an untitled letter sent in 1946 reproduced in Walter Gropius: Visionary Founder of the Bauhaus 2019: pg140
While educating at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Gropius was involved in numerous architectural competitions and commissions: the Memorial in Weimar for the Victims of the Kapp Putsch, the ultimately failed but radically innovative Chicago Tribune Tower submission and the Auerbach Residence in Jena being a select few. Eventually, Gropius was forced to flee his motherland in 1934; not due to a physical expulsion but because of the bureaucratic hostility limiting his artistic emancipation with the rise of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Droste, M. 2006).
He
fled to England with the assistance of renowned architect Maxwell Fry (although
the German authorities did consent and the sympathetic relationship between
architect and home nation continued until Gropius’s death) who was one of the
first British architects to adopt what would later develop into the
International Style (Jackson, I. and Holland, J. 2014). The London partnership barely
lasted three years. Gropius was offered and accepted the position of professor
at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1937. It’s conceivable
that he had wandering feelings akin to a refugee, he was certainly sure of the approaching
conflict between Great Britain and the newly proclaimed Third Reich or perhaps
the pursuit of exclusively practising did not yet quite solely suit his
educator mindset, so prominently controlling and revered while at the Bauhaus.
Swiftly
promoted from professor to director of architecture, Gropius had an immediate
impact on a school which had previously relied on an “antiquated system” based
on the Parisian Neoclassical Beaux-Arts
method (Lupfer, G. and Sigel, P. 2004). He enlisted the help of Marcel Breuer,
a fellow European who had graduated within the very first Weimar Bauhaus cohort and was later employed as
the furniture workshop master while the institution was established in Dessau.
Breuer was appointed associate professor as well as accepting the offer of
partnering Gropius in his architectural practice in 1938, continuing the trend
of cooperation. Breuer would highlight the importance of a close relationship
between master and students: a fact that Gropius, restrained to a distant
connection that perhaps characterises his idolised status, was criticised for.
The
final influences working alongside Gropius came from his colleagues at The
Architects Collaborative. Founded in 1945 with Gropius leading seven younger
American architects, all recognising the influx of modernist philosophy exiled
from wartime Europe, TAC would go on to become one of the most highly esteemed
architectural firms in the world. The impetus of other designers can be seen in
the astute shift from a purist functionalism which marked Gropius’s earlier
works. The block of flats for the Internationale
Bauausstellung Berlin 1957 (International Building Exhibition) and the
Thomas Glassworks in Ambery demonstrate this; showing a greater plethora of
coloured materiality within the facade palette of the former (Gropius seems to
have previously saved all his multi-coloured expression for internal finishes.
See Paul Klee’s house at Bauhaus Dessau
(Lupfer, G. and Sigel, P 2004 pg 53)) and expanding the definition of form away
from the purely rational – adding a flavour of theatrical – in the latter.
(above) Figures 7-10. The block of flats for the Interbau,Berlin, Germany. Constructed as part of the propagandistic large scale rebuilding of the Hansaviertel in the west of Berlin (when social tensions were rising within the split city leading up to the Berlin Crisis of 1961 and the erection of the Berlin Wall). Completed between 1955-1957 and thereafter subject to dissonant critique
(above) Figures 11-14. Completed in 1970, one year after the death of Gropius, the Glassworks in Amberg add a noted example of the work of TAC in contrast to that of just Gropius. Commonly nicknamed the ‘glass cathedral’, it simultaneously strikes an extreme exaggerated form while emphasising its austere materials (the latter perhaps relating back to Gropius’s functional outlook, the former, seemingly diverging)
Image references are available on request
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