19 Quotes & Sayings By Walter Gropius

Walter Gropius was a German architect who designed the Bauhaus school of architecture. He is best remembered for developing the Functionalist style that was influential in modern architecture. His work is often associated with the international style and the Bauhaus style, but he also made contributions to European modernism in his time.

Only work which is the product of inner compulsion can...
1
Only work which is the product of inner compulsion can have spiritual meaning. Walter Gropius
2
Society needs a good image of itself. That is the job of the architect. Walter Gropius
3
How can we expect our students to become bold and fearless in thought and action if we encase them in sentimental shrines feigning a culture which has long since disappeared? Walter Gropius
4
Theo van Doesburg wanted to teach in the Bauhaus in 1922. I refused, however, to appoint him since I considered him to be too aggressive and too rigidly theoretical: he would have wrought havoc in the Bauhaus through his fanatic attitude, which ran counter to my own broader approach. Walter Gropius
5
The ultimate, if distant, aim of the Bauhaus is the unified work of art - the great structure - in which there is no distinction between monumental and decorative art. Walter Gropius
6
The utilization of flat roofs as 'grounds' offers us a means of re-acclimatizing nature amidst the stony deserts of our great towns for the plots from which she has been evicted to make room for buildings can be given back to her up aloft. Walter Gropius
7
Together let us desire, conceive, and create the new structure of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will one day rise toward Heaven from the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith. Walter Gropius
8
Architecture begins where engineering ends. Walter Gropius
9
The Bauhaus strives to bring together all creative effort into one whole, to reunify all the disciplines of practical art - sculpture, painting, handicrafts, and crafts - as inseparable components of a new architecture. Walter Gropius
10
Let us together create the new building of the future, which will be everything in one form: architecture and sculpture and painting. Walter Gropius
11
Good architecture should be a projection of life itself, and that implies an intimate knowledge of biological, social, technical, and artistic problems. Walter Gropius
12
I cannot imagine myself fitting into the existing curriculum. I am too self-willed for that and have had my own very definite ideas for a long time, very different from the existing ways, as to how architecture is to be taught. Walter Gropius
13
The development of the New Architecture encountered serious obstacles at a very early stage of its development. Conflicting theories and the dogmas enunciated in architects' personal manifestos all helped to confuse the main issue. Walter Gropius
14
The general public, formerly profoundly indifferent to everything to do with building, has been shaken out of its torpor; personal interest in architecture as something that concerns every one of us in our daily lives has been very widely aroused; and the broad line of its future development are already clearly discernible. Walter Gropius
15
We are in the midst of a momentous catastrophe of world history, of a transformation of all aspects of life and of the entire inner human being This is perhaps fortunate for the artistic person, if he is strong enough to bear the consequences, because what we need is the courage to have inner experience. Walter Gropius
16
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. Walter Gropius
17
Proficiency in a craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies the prime source of creative imagination. Let us then create a new guild of craftsmen without the class distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist! Walter Gropius
18
Architects, sculptors painters, we all must return to the crafts! For art is not a 'profession.' There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. Walter Gropius