yr11_weimar_bauhaus_gropius

=Walter Gropius=

You head into the Bauhaus architectural school and you are welcomed by Walter Gropius. You engage him in conversation.

**Walter Gropius:** Hello and Welcome to the Bauhaus architectural school!  **You:** Hello! You are Walter Gropius?  **Walter Gropius:** Yes indeed, what is it that brings you to the Bauhaus?  **You:** I was just visiting Berlin and thought it would be nice to come around here, but now that I have the occasion could I ask you a couple of questions.  **Walter Gropius:** Alright, lets go into my office we will be a little more comfortable. You follow him through a couple of corridors, you notice that hanged on the walls are different designs of buildings, chairs and various other things. You finally reach his office at the end of a corridor.  **Walter Gropius:** here we are. Sit down please You sit in a chair next to his desk. **You:** Can you tell me a bit about yourself if you don't mind. **Walter Gropius:** Why not? I became an architect just like my father and my great uncle, I wanted to be like them I guess, however, I’ve never managed to draw and have always depended on collaborators to do that work and if you can keep this secret, when I was at school I hired an assistant to complete my homework for me. **You:** Don’t worry I won’t tell anybody, when did you get your first job? **Walter Gropius:** In 1908 I found a job with the firm of Peter Behrens. The people I worked with at that time included Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Dietrich Marcks. In 1910 I left the firm of Behrens and together with Adolf Meyer we established a practice in Berlin. We did the façade of the Faguswerk in Alfeld-an-der-Leine, Germany, a shoe last factory. Even though it was only the façade we tried to make people see our modernist principles. Some other works we did during this period include the office and factory building for the Werkbund Exhibition in Cologne. **You:** ah that is interesting but I am still struggling to work out what this 'Bauhaus' is? **Walter:** Ah no problem. The Bauhaus is a place where a lot of the best architects met and together combine the finest art, artictecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design and typography. **You:** Wow, what made all the artictects come to the bauhaus? **Walter:** Well it attracted many artictects as it was famous for its approach to design and how it operated and taught <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**You:** What made that famous? <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**Walter:** Well, the Bauhaus was the first arctictect school to combine asethesic and usefulness. This means that, for exaple a house would not just be in a box shape, instead we would design so that it was more about the fuction and then about asethesic and not just follow how everyone else had buildt houses. Our guiding principle was that design is neither an intellectual nor a material affair, but simply an integral part of the stuff of life, necessary for everyone in a civilized society.” <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Here look i have a picture of one <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">-Look at the picture <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**You:** Oh yeah i understand what you mean now <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**You:** When did you start the Bauhaus? <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**Walter**: Well we started it in 1919 but we had our first display of work in 1923 and then unfortunaly in 1933 we were forced to shut down and leave the country <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**You:** That is terrible why? <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**Walter:** Well when the Nazis came to power they saw us as a sign of communism as we had many russian artictects and they forced us to shut down. I then left to Britain and eventually to America <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**You:** Thats horrible, well was America nice? <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**Walter:** Yes i really enjoyed my time there and my design of the gropius house was said to be bringing International Moderism to America, so I am pleased to have infleunced American Culture. <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**You:** What other projects were you involved in? <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**Walter Gropius:** In 1919, I was involved in the Glass Chain utopian expressionist correspondence under the pseudonym 'Mass' and the "Monument to the March Dead", which was designed in 1919 and finally executed in 1920. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Take a look at the "Monument to the March Dead" <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**You**: Thank you for your time Mr. Gropius but I must move on. <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**Walter Gropius:** Thank you to you too for listening to me.

//With your conversation over, you thank him for his time and leave the Bauhaus.//

Go and Visit the Hufeisensiedlung //Go East to the cinema// //Go South to the music hall//