Gropius House

Architect: Walter Gropius

Year built: 1938

Walter Gropius, founder of the German design school known as the Bauhaus, was one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century. He designed Gropius House as his family home when he came to Massachusetts to teach architecture at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. 

Modest in scale, the house was revolutionary in impact. It combined the traditional elements of New England architecture—wood, brick, and fieldstone—with innovative materials rarely used in domestic settings at that time, including glass block, acoustical plaster, chrome banisters, and the latest technology in fixtures. 

In keeping with Bauhaus philosophy, every aspect of the house and its surrounding landscape was planned for maximum efficiency and simplicity of design. The house contains a significant collection of furniture designed by Marcel Breuer and fabricated in the Bauhaus workshops. With the family's possessions still in place, Gropius House has a sense of immediacy and intimacy.

First floor hallway - The entry and hallway illustrate Gropius’s use of traditional New England forms and ideas. The central hall with doors at both front and rear, reminiscent of eighteenth-century homes, ensures cross ventilation. Inside the front door is a mudroom, separated from the hall by a curtain rather than a door, that could be closed to keep out the cold and opened to enhance ventilation. White clapboards, a traditional New England material, are used in a non-traditional way to great effect. Brought inside and applied vertically, Ise felt that “their narrow vertical shadows relieve the white blandness and make an excellent background for artwork.” The central stair, again a New England tradition, is modified by Gropius. The curved staircase faces away from the entry, signifying the upstairs as private space. 

To the left of the entrance door is an open space to hang coats. A coat closet positioned near the front entry was not a typical feature found in houses at this time. And by eliminating the door, Gropius incorporated the closet as a design element, as a way to introduce color and texture that would change with the seasons. The building materials used in the hallway are also unusual in a residential setting. The floor is a resilient cork tile and the ceiling is made of acoustical plaster. Both materials are sound-absorbing, durable, functional, and elegant. The lighting in this space and throughout the house is distinctive. Gropius used glass blocks and a floor-to-ceiling window to transmit natural light to this area. He installed steel-plated wall sconces, intended for commercial application, to provide both indirect light and dramatic shadows when used in the evening. Gropius consulted catalogs that catered to hotels, restaurants, theaters, and other industries. Through these suppliers he was able to acquire fixtures designed for intensive use and long life. To the right of the closet is one of four bathrooms in the house. All four are arranged in one connected area to minimize plumbing and installation costs. The artwork displayed in the hallway includes a Joan Miro lithograph depicting a stylized bull in black, red and white, a chromatic grouping favored by the Bauhaus and seen throughout the Gropius House. Miro likely gave it as a gift to his friend.

Source: http://www.historicnewengland.org/historic-properties/homes/Gropius%20House