Our road trip had a route. Until I discovered Gropius
We set off on a road trip. As an art historian with a certain obsession for architecture, I started to incorporate a small detour here and there into our route. A Gropius house here, an Aalto there, then Saarinen, Pei, Gehry... And suddenly, a second journey emerged within our trip, which I would like to tell you about in a series of articles. We begin with Gropius.
Originally, we finally wanted to visit the family with whom I had lived as an exchange student in Vermont in 1996/97. Although 29 years have passed since then, we have always stayed in touch. Unbelievable, I know. Since we were crossing the Atlantic anyway, we could also include Montréal, where a friend of ours lives. And New York? The kids really wanted to go there. That is how our road trip came together piece by piece: Montréal, Vermont, Maine, Boston, and New York.
However, while planning the route, I began to look at the map with different eyes. And I discovered Walter Gropius's house just a few kilometers outside of Boston. From that moment on, there was no turning back: my architectural treasure hunt had begun. The kids, let's say, only shared my enthusiasm to a limited extent. But the visionary house of the Bauhaus founder was bound to blow even them away.
Gropius House – the Bauhaus lands in the forest
But what is Walter Gropius actually doing in the USA? You might be asking yourself that right now. In fact, I was also surprised to come across the residential house designed by the Bauhaus founder—which is now a museum—in Lincoln, of all places, a tranquil, green town in Massachusetts about twenty kilometers from Boston.
In 1933, the Bauhaus closes under pressure from the Nazi regime. Paradoxically, the attempt to destroy the ideas of modernism contributes to spreading them throughout the world. Many teachers and students emigrate to the USA, Great Britain, Switzerland, and elsewhere. In 1937, Gropius is appointed to the Harvard Graduate School of Design; a year later, he builds his house in Lincoln.
The exciting thing about it: he doesn't simply transplant the Bauhaus from Dessau to Massachusetts. The house is white, linear, and minimalist, but at the same time incorporates typical materials and solutions from New England—starting with the wood siding. Gropius is looking for a modernism that engages in a dialogue with the location, while at the same time clearly enjoying using inexpensive industrial materials in unexpected contexts. For example, the spiral staircase on the outside of the house: it looks like a factory fire escape, but leads to the terrace of his daughter Ati Gropius's room—so that she could get directly outside and down into the garden from her room. Every teenager's dream.
The Bauhaus moves in
But it is only inside that the enthusiasm really starts to build. The entrance seems almost inconspicuous: a small door, a wall of glass blocks through which natural light falls. Then the space opens up, and one room leads almost automatically into the next.
It starts in the study of Walter and Ise Gropius. The two worked side by side. Under the long window with a view of the greenery, the Double Desk that Marcel Breuer designed in 1925–1926 still stands today. When the Gropiuses moved to Massachusetts, they took it with them. Walter planned the room so that the desk would find its exact place there.
On the floor, another small masterpiece awaits: the Isokon Penguin Donkey, designed in 1939 by Egon Riss for the then-new Penguin paperbacks. An object that perfectly shows what modern design is all about: a concrete problem solved with an elegant, organic form.
Right next door, the living room opens up to the landscape. Huge window fronts flood the room with light. Back then, the panes were still single-glazed—and as we learn during the tour, it got quite cold in the house in winter. But the vision was clear: open up rooms, let light in, and bring the interior and exterior into dialogue with each other.
And it is exactly here that we suddenly have this strange feeling: the house is almost ninety years old and yet could have been designed yesterday.
The fact that the house still looks so modern today is also due to the furniture. Many pieces are by Marcel Breuer, initially a student and later a teacher at the Bauhaus. For his designs, he experimented with tubular steel and was inspired by, among other things, bicycle construction. In general, the house brings together some of the great names of 20th-century design. While leafing through the publication about the house published by Historic New England, I discover two small anecdotes: Breuer's Isokon Long Chair was Gropius's favorite armchair. Friends gave him the Womb Chair by Eero Saarinen for his seventieth birthday. What we don't know yet: some of these names will cross our path again on our trip.
From the living area, we go into the dining room. The table and chairs are also by Breuer. Our guide shows us a much more inconspicuous detail: a museum spotlight, recessed into the ceiling and aimed exactly at the center of the table. The plates are illuminated as if they were exhibits in a display case. Incredibly simple, functional, and at the same time theatrical. Wow.
Form follows function
Next to it is the kitchen—and it strikes a completely different tone. No staging: efficiency reigns here. Almost like in a small professional kitchen, the work steps are clearly separated: preparation and washing up in one room, cooking in the other. Even cooking was apparently a design problem for Gropius that needed to be solved.
Upstairs, the Bauhaus philosophy continues in everyday life: hardly any wasted space in the hallways, but instead spacious rooms, oriented to the east to catch the morning light. What impresses me most, however, is the solution in the master bedroom. A glass wall separates the deliberately unheated bedroom from the heated dressing and bathroom area. This allowed Walter and Ise to sleep in the cool and literally take a step into the warmth in the morning. An almost banal solution—and yet typical Bauhaus: first observe how we live, then adapt the space to our needs.
We step back out into the greenery of Lincoln—quite enthusiastic. "That was one of the best tours you've ever dragged me along to," says my daughter.
Well, once you've been bitten by the architecture bug, you want more. And the next day, the next treat is already waiting for us in Cambridge.
In fact, the Gropius House was a surprise for all of us. For me, because I hadn't expected to come across a piece of Bauhaus in the middle of the forests of New England. And for the kids, who discovered how fascinating the vision of an architect like Walter Gropius can be.
I would say our architectural detours have started off promisingly. And now we are even more excited about what awaits us in Cambridge. But that is another story.
Do you like to travel and, like me, have a soft spot for architecture? Then follow me: in the next article, we will explore the architectural highlights on the MIT campus.
I’m meticulous about polishing texts and creative when adapting them into Italian. Sitting still? Not for me. If I’m not tapping away at my keyboard, I’m out and about with my boxer or dragging my family up mountains or on architectural detours. This doesn’t always go down well, but in the end, la bellezza always wins out.
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