Walter Gropius (1888–1969) was the founder of the Bauhaus and a pioneer of modern architecture. In 1919, he was appointed to succeed Henry van de Velde as director of the School of Visual Arts in Weimar, which he renamed “Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar”. In 1924, the Bauhaus moved to Dessau; Gropius designed the school building and the masters’ houses for the new location. In 1928, Gropius passed on the title of director to Swiss architect Hannes Meyer and became a self-employed architect in Berlin before emigrating to the United States in 1934. As a professor of architecture, he taught at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he founded The Architects’ Collaborative in 1941. In his political efforts to industrialize construction and create desperately needed residential spaces, Gropius captured the spirit of the times and influenced the work of numerous other architects.
