Walter Adolph Georg Gropius was born in May 18th 1883 at Berlin in Germany and passed away in July 5th 1969 at Boston, in the U.S. Walter was a German architect and discovered the Bauhaus school. He was well known as a pioneering master of modern architecture. In 1903 and 1807 he studied architecture in Munich and Berlin. When a year passed he worked for Peter Behrens until 1910. They practiced in the AEG Turbine hall of concrete, steel, and glass which was planned and built. Then he started to have his own practice. Later on in 1910, Walter started to become a member of the Deutscher Werkbund to design and promote individual creativity. In 1908 he was invited to head the school for the applied arts in Weimer, and Walter didn’t take up the opportunity but soon the school closed in 1915. Walter designed a product where he merged two designs that would be a teaching facility which would operate for industry, commerce and crafts. Walter’s design laid the cornerstone for the state Bauhaus, where Walter became its first director and hired teachers. But later on he had to look for a new site due to political resistance. At Dessau he designed a new Bauhaus building in 1925-26. Then in 1927 he gave up his job as director but the Bauhaus was still ongoing. In 1937 Walter was invited to teach at Harvard. He practiced a joint architecture practice with an architecture modernist. As well as he built a pavilion for the 1939 New York World’s fair.
Walter Gropius built a Gropius house for his family after moving from the US. It demonstrates the principles of the Bauhaus which is a simple and well-designed. It was designed and detailed to work as a whole. The house consists of steel wall lights, chromed banisters, a spotlight resting on the ceiling beaming over the circular table in the dining room, a spotlight in the study, glass block walls separating two rooms with a plant that climbs the glass wall and floodlights brighten the trees. The house is based on a colour palette consisted throughout the house- black, white, different tones of gray, splashes of red and earth colours. Another piece of Gropius’ is the newspaper shelf. It is known for its unusual and unique design. This piece is created out of wood and created out of two S shapes. Between the spaces are wooden slats which support the S shape shelves and create shadows which are nicely spaced throughout the piece.