The following article by Walter Gropiusappeared in the March 1956 issue of ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

Simply click on the photo below to retrieve hisMarch 1937 article from our ARCHives.

N APRIL 10 Walter Gropius will

receive in London the Royal Gold

Medal for 1956 of the Royal

Institute of British Architects fol-

lowing its award by Her Majesty

Queen Elizabeth II on the unani-

mous recommendation of the

Council of that Institute.

At the request of ARCHITECURAL

RECORD, Professor Gropius has

selected from his outstanding work

seven especially significant buildings

and projects which we are honored

to present here together with a stim-

ulating statement on the architec-

tural state of the nation from a truly

pioneer architect and educator.

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1911-12

ARCHITECTURAL RECORD MARCH 1956 191

1911–12 Shoe Last Factory, Karl Benscheidt, Alfeld,A. L. Built 1911–12, photographed 1954. Walter Gropiuswith Adolf Meyer

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1914

1914

WALTER GROPIUS: 1914 Upper: Office Building at the Werkbund Exhi-bition, Cologne. Lower: Machine Hall opposite the OfficeBuilding at the same exhibition. Both buildings by WalterGropius with Adolf Meyer

1922 Design for the Chicago Tribune Tower

1922

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1924-25

1949

WALTER GROPIUS:

ARCHITECTURAL RECORD MARCH 1956 195

1953

1924–25 Bauhaus Building, Dessau

1949 Harvard Graduate Center, Harkness CommonsBuilding. The Architects Collaborative

1953 Office Building, McCormick Estate, Chicago,designed 1953. The Architects Collaborative; Arthur Myh-rum, Associate

RCHITECTURAL RECORD has asked meto state both what troubles me mostand what pleases me most in the statusof architecture in the United States.

In the May issue of 1937 shortlyafter I had entered this, my adoptedcountry, for good, ARCHITECTURAL

RECORD published a statement aboutmy general intentions as newly-appointed Harvard Professor ofArchitecture. I emphasized that “itshould be our highest aim to produce atype of architect who is able, to visual-ize an entity rather than let himself getabsorbed into the narrow channels ofspecialization . . . to make way for theman of vision.”

Have we made any progress towardsthis goal? Indeed we have. During thelast twenty years, a young Americangeneration of talented architects hascome to the fore—among them, I amproud to say, many of my own formerstudents whose achievements showdefinite signs of a growing coherenceand kinship of the American architec-tural idiom. Comparing publicationson European architecture with thoseon American design, the latter standsout; in its generally more direct, freshand flexible solutions, less inhibited,less tempered by prejudice. In a coun-try that is blessed with abundance, anenviable array of technical meansoffers opportunities for daring experi-ments, and this challenge has beenenthusiastically met.

What a contrast to the early dayswhen we struggled with the first lettersof the new architectural alphabet,hemmed in on all sides by colossalprejudices and barely able to sur-mount, the technical difficulties thatbeset, all attempts at creating new,unprecedented forms for living. Wewere lonely fighters with insufficientequipment, with uncertain allies, andpractical demonstrations of our ideaswere few and far between.

Now, when a new generation is ableto use the architectural language of thetwentieth century as a matter ofcourse, when prejudice has died downand a building program is in progressthat supersedes any expectation, wearchitects find ourselves still at a fairdistance from our desired goal: thetransformation of our chaotic, pro-fusely growing surroundings into apattern of organic entity and visualbliss. For such a desire has hardlytaken root yet within our Americanpopulation as a whole; we are stillwithout their response and encourage-ment. We are still in danger of losingcontrol over the vehicle of progresswhich our time has created. The mis-use of the machine tends to flatten themind, leveling off individual diversity

and independence of thought andaction. But diversity is, after all, thevery source of true democracy! But fac-tors of expediency, like high-pressuresalesmanship and money-making as anend in itself, have impaired the indi-vidual’s capacity to seek and under-stand the deeper potentialities of lifefrom which the culture of a nationdevelops. Our sense of neighborlyintegration, our love of beauty as abasic life requirement, are underdevel-oped. We need, on the one hand, dis-tinct diversity of minds resulting fromintensive individual performance, and,on the other, a common idiom ofregional expression springing from thecumulative experience of successivegenerations who gradually weed outthe superfluous and the merely arbi-trary from the essential and typical.Such a voluntary selective process, farfrom producing dull uniformity,should give many individuals a chanceto contribute their own individualvariation of a common theme and sohelp to evolve again the integrated pat-tern for living that we lost with theadvent of the machine age. The twoopposites—individual variety, and acommon denominator expressed bycreating form symbols of human fel-lowship—need to be reconciled toeach other. The degree of success inshaping and fusing these oppositesindicates the depth of culture reachedand is the very yardstick for judgingthe architectural achievements of aperiod.

Our scientific age of specialization,with its glorious achievements for ourphysical life, has simultaneouslybrought about confusion and a generaldissolution of context; it has resultedin shrinking and fragmentizing life.

But there are indications that we areslowly moving away from overspecial-ization and its perilous atomizingeffect on the social coherence of thecommunity. Many ideas and discover-ies of our present civilization are whol-ly concerned with finding again therelationship between the phenomenaof the universe, which scientists had sofar viewed only in isolation fromneighboring fields. The scientist hascontributed new knowledge of theidentity of matter and energy. Theartist, the architect, has learned toexpress visibly with inert materials anew dimension—time and motion.Are we on the way to regaining a com-prehensive vision of the oneness of theworld which we had let disintegrate?In the gigantic task of its reunifica-tion, the architect and planner willhave to play a big role. He must bewell trained not ever to lose a totalvision in spite of the wealth of special-

ized knowledge which he has to absorband integrate. He must comprehendland, nature, man and his art as onegreat entity. In our mechanized soci-ety, we should patiently emphasizethat we are still a world of men, thatman in his natural environment mustbe the focus of all planning and build-ing.

If we, the architects and planners,envisage the strategic goal of our pro-fession in its vast complexity, it indeedembraces the civilized life of man in allits major aspects: the destiny of theland, the forests, the water, the citiesand the countryside; the knowledge ofman through biology, sociology andpsychology; law, government and eco-nomics, art, architecture and engineer-ing. As all are interdependent, we can-not consider them separately in com-partments. Their connectedness,directed toward a cultural entity, isundoubtedly of greater importance forsuccess in planning our environmentthan finding ever-so-perfect practicalsolutions for limited objectives. If weagree on this rank of order, then theemphasis must be on the “compositemind,” as we may call it, developedthrough a process of continuous cross-checking and balancing, rather thanon the specialized expert who shunsresponsibility for the whole anddivides his brain into tight compart-ments.

To rebalance our life and to human-ize the impact of the machine, we mustgive the creative architect, the artist,his chance to reassert himself as theprototype of “whole man.” As soon asthe longing for “total architecture,” asI like to call it, becomes more univer-sal, there will grow a demand for“experiments in living,” for courageouspractical attempts to examine the liv-ing value of our building and planninghabits by setting up organic modelcommunities where our new livingstandards can be tested and demon-strated. As soon as the averageAmerican, with his innate enthusiasmand readiness to act, will feel the needfor a more beautiful and more organi-cally coherent environment as anexpression of his pride and participa-tion in our democracy, then he maycause a chain reaction conducive tosolving our great and complicatedtask, to have both, unity and diversity,the two indispensable components of acultural order.

WALTER GROPIUS

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