ok, new architecture here doesn’t really mean ‘new’. I mean it was ‘new’ during 1930s. it was his ideas that were new to architecture at that time, so a tribute to him is considerable here don’t you think?
by the way, if you are wondering who is this walter gropius, he is one of the three fathers of modern architecture - apart from le corbusier and mies van der rohe. and in my opinion, he is big mover towards the second generation of modern architects, teaching his new architheories at his founded school at bauhaus, and also at harvard afterwards due to the world war.
actually this post is quite inspired by google’s celebration of walter gropius’s birthday. no you wonder how important this figure is!
OK. since I have this journal about walter gropius for my communications principle. I think this is a good time to upload the excerpt here.
By Lee Yang Yang
In the early 1900s, the technology advancement from the previous Industrial Revolution changed our lives, including the field of architecture. Instead of assembling materials on site, materials are mass produced and prefabricated in factories in standardized sizes – relatively reducing the cost of the materials and the time of const ruction compared to the traditional method. Buildings can be erected regardless of the season or weather, as construction materials were produced inside factories. This way the architecture will be uniformed in order across the globe, leading to higher living standards of the community.
Walter Gropius insisted that there should be no more architecture derived from historical and traditional styles, but instead calling for a new definition of this new period of architecture, independent from the past, as a prediction towards the future. Gropius then infused his principles of modern architecture into the school of architecture he founded, the Bauhaus. He highlighted the approach of industry towards design, with the Bauhaus workshops experimenting practical ideas and methods that embraced mass-production which is quite new to the field at that time.
For Gropius, modern architecture is not an architectural style the likes of Beaux-Art or Art-Nouveau – it is rather creating and preserving the standards of excellence, uniformed and universalized. Thus, Bauhaus do not in any way relates or associates itself to any architectural style or group, so that the loop of recurring historical styles will be evaded and modern architecture itself is timeless, permanent that would not lose itself in the war with time.
Neither did Gropius knew that the Bauhaus would have become one of the most famous architecture school of the modern movement, as the most referenced and discussed school of modern architecture even into the 21st century. On the other hand, Gropius himself became one of the big three of modern architecture, other than Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. Thus, the primary and unbiased opinions of Gropius were clearly important, in the same time preserving the original ideas and principles in architecture that he incorporated into Bauhaus.
most references from:
an architectural student from malaysia, studying in limkokwing university of creative technology, pursuing his degree in architectural science
