| Architect: Walter Gropius |
| Location: Massachusetts, USA |
| Construction year: 1938 |
| Structure material: Wood |
| Architectural style: Modernism, International Style, Bauhaus |
The Gropius House is the structure designed by Walter Gropius, one of the founding architects of the Bauhaus, for his family in New England, Massachusetts. The building, which was completed in 1938, is nowadays used to exhibit some important works from the Bauhaus school.
The fact that the architect Walter Gropius went to America because of the Nazi regime and continued his architectural practice there played an active role in the transfer of the architectural knowledge of Bauhaus and Germany to the new continent. For this reason, the house takes an extremely important place in the history of modern architecture as one of the symbolic examples for the International Style in America.
In this article, we will give a brief information about the architectural features of the Gropius House, one of the classical buildings of the Bauhaus style. The content includes subheadings such as architectural design review, structure, spatial organization, materials, functions and landscape.
Architecture Analysis of Gropius House
Architect Walter Gropius, one of the founders of Bauhaus and the first director of the school, preferred many architectural approaches required by the International Style in the building. The architect, inspired by the local architectural features of New England, has created a work that both establishes strong relations with its context and publishes the new architectural language of modernism as a manifesto, so to speak.
This simple but well-designed building was painted white, the color most frequently used by modernist architects. The sharp lines of the house and the ribbon windows used on the facades are reminiscent of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye. The interior of Gropius House, which is dominated by light colors, has a very bright atmosphere with the contribution of these ribbon windows.
The open plan setup, which has also become a fashion for modern architecture, was also used in the interior design of the Gropius House. Additionally, wooden framings forms the carrier system of the building, which also has a terrace roof. Thanks to these modernist design principles, it must be said that the Gropius House is an exemplary building for Le Corbusier’s 5 Points of Architecture.
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The porch with a long eaves welcomes the users who want to enter the house from the main entrance. At the end of the porch, there is an anteroom that directs the visitor to the entrance hall. By providing privacy, the glass bricks on the outside facade of the entree increase the mystery about the interior at first glance. Nevertheless, the plain and modern designs inside, combined with a bright and spacious atmosphere, make you feel the peace of simplicity instead of a sense of mystery.
Spatial Organization
The mass design and spatial organization of the building are far from artificial symmetry. On the contrary, Gropius has prioritized functionality and pragmatism. For example, because the bedrooms need the morning sun, he placed these rooms to the east side. The main living spaces such as the living room are positioned on the south and west facades to receive light during the day.
The bathrooms, cellars, kitchens and stairs, which need less sunlight, are located in the northern part of the house. Thus, the use of daylight has influenced the design of the building in a very rational way for the reasons of both heating-lighting and a healthy life.
This 2-storey house, built with a wooden frame system, rises upon a masonry basement. Inside, there is a U-shaped half spiral staircase connecting the two floors, while a spiral staircase was also designed outside, providing direct access to the roof.
The 2 floors connected by the stairs inside contain the following spatials:
- Kitchen
- Living room + dining room (open plan)
- Work office
- 3 bedroom
- Maid room
- Service room
- 4 bathroom
- Sewing room
The bathrooms are all designed to have a common plumbing system, by kept to the north and together. Agglomerating the space group consisted by wet volumes in one place is an approach that continues to be used in this century.
All spatials have been placed particularly so that each member of a modern family can live comfortably and perform their activities in the house in the most easy way. Furthermore, Bauhaus furnitures designed by Marcel Breuer have provided the reflection of the architectural concept of the house to the interior decoration.
Materials
The building has taken its share from the architectural tradition of the New England city in which it is located. Building materials such as wood, cut stone and brick were used as inspired by the local architectural texture.
The architect has blended these traditional building materials with modern technology and industrial materials. These include glass blocks, steel railings, gypsum panels and acoustic panels.
Like the structural system of the building, a large part of the facade has a wooden cladding material consisting of vertical strips.
We witness the harmony of local and modern architectural pleasures in material scale through natural stones on the basement wall, glass blocks, bricks, plaster and wood materials on the exterior.
Landscape
Gropius used his home in lectures as an exemplary study area for his students in Harvard. Moreover, the landscape in which the building is located is of great importance for the history of modern landscape.
Rationality, pragmatism, simplicity and efficiency have been taken as basis in the landscaping, as in the plan setup of the building, its facades and almost in every aspect of the design.
As a result, the Gropius House, located in a natural context, blends the Bauhaus building design principles, also the rational and functional attitude of modernist architecture with local building materials and integrates them in a single body.
Nowadays
Upon the death of Walter Gropius, among the pioneers of modernism and one of the most important figures in the history of architecture, in 1969, his wife gave up their rights to the property and donated the building to the Society of Preservation of New England Antiquities in 1974. However, she continued to live at home until his death in 1983.
The building, which was declared a national monument in 2000, was turned into a museum. It is possible to visit Gropius House, one of the most important works left behind by Buhaus and Gropius, by purchasing a ticket at its address in Lincoln.
