According to Sigfried Giedion (p. 6), Gropius grew to adulthood in an environment in which Germany rapidly developed into a highly industrialized country capable of rivaling both France and England and enjoying a period of prosperity unknown for several hundred years. Gropius had a marked familial connection to the arts, industrial enterprise, the crafts, and public service. As Giedion (p. 7) has noted, ôartist, public servant and experimenter are all mingled and reflected in the personality of Walter Gropius.ö
The period of GropiusÆ early work (e.g., from 1900 to 1914) saw Germany rise to the forefront of the European scene in such disparate fields as economics, politics, and military might. Industrialization proceeded at a dramatic pace, with the inclusion of many native-born and foreign artists and craftsmen in the industrial environment. According to Giedion (p. 21), the roots of a drive for reform in architecture and the arts began to become evident around the turn of the century, with GropiusÆ first employer, Peter Behrens, one of the outstanding figures in this movement.
The creation of the Werkbund made available a number of opportunities in the forms of large-scale exhibitions, for artists and architects to display their work. Guiding the efforts of the organization was the following statement taken from its 1908 constitution: ôThe aim of the League is to raise the standard of manufactured products by the joint efforts of art, industry, and craftsmanship (Giedion, p. 21).ö
The Bauhaus was an institute for experiments and the education of German artists, industrial artists, architects, and craftsmen. Gropius founded the institution in Weimar in 1919, but it was moved in 1926 to Dessau into a radically modern edifice designed by Gropius himself (ôBahaus,ö p. 1). The idealistic basis of the Bauhaus as explicated in the work of Gropius and others was a socially oriented program requiring the art...