Gropius the man who built the Bauhaus

First published in 2018 by Faber & Faber Limited Bloomsbury House United Kingdom.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preface: The silver prince -- First life: Germany -- Berlin 1883-1907 -- Spain 1907-1908 -- Berlin 1908-1910 -- Vienna and Alma Mahler 1910-1913 -- Gropius at war 1914-1918 -- Bauhaus Weimar and Lily Hildebrandt 1919-1920 -- Bauhaus Weimar and Maria Benemann 1920-1922 -- Bauhaus Weimar and Ise Gropius 1923 -- Bauhaus Dessau 1925-1926 -- Bauhaus Dessau 1927-1928 -- America 1928 -- Berlin 1928-1932 -- Berlin 1933-1934 -- Second life: England -- London, Berlin, Rome 1934 -- London 1934 -- London 1935 -- London 1935-1936 -- London 1936-1937 -- Third life: America -- Harvard 1937-1939 -- Harvard and the Second World War 1940-1944 -- Return to Berlin 1945-1947 -- Wandering star : Japan, Paris, London, Baghdad, Berlin 1953-1959 -- New England 1960-1969 -- Afterword: Reverberations.

The impact of Walter Gropius can be measured in his buildings--Fagus Factory, Bauhaus Dessau, Pan Am--but no less in his students. I. M. Pei, Paul Rudolph, Anni Albers, Philip Johnson, Fumihiko Maki: countless masters were once disciples at the Bauhaus in Berlin and at Harvard. Between 1910 and 1930, Gropius was at the center of European modernism and avant-garde society glamor, only to be exiled to the antimodernist United Kingdom during the Nazi years. Later, under the democratizing influence of American universities, Gropius became an advocate of public art and cemented a starring role in twentieth-century architecture and design. Fiona MacCarthy challenges the image of Gropius as a doctrinaire architectural rationalist, bringing out the visionary philosophy and courage that carried him through a politically hostile age. Pilloried by Tom Wolfe as inventor of the monolithic high-rise, Gropius is better remembered as inventor of a form of art education that influenced schools worldwide. He viewed argument as intrinsic to creativity. Unusually for one in his position, Gropius encouraged women's artistic endeavors and sought equal romantic partners. Though a traveler in elite circles, he objected to the cloistering of beauty as "a special privilege for the aesthetically initiated." Gropius offers a poignant and personal story--and a fascinating reexamination of the urges that drove European and American modernism.--