Walter Gropius's Quotes

The fear that individuality will be crushed out by the growing 'tyranny' of standardization is the sort of myth which cannot withstand the briefest examination.

Walter Gropius

Theo van Doesburg wanted to teach in the Bauhaus in 1922. I refused, however, to appoint him since I considered him to be too aggressive and too rigidly theoretical: he would have wrought havoc in the Bauhaus through his fanatic attitude, which ran counter to my own broader approach.

Walter Gropius

Together let us desire, conceive, and create the new structure of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will one day rise toward Heaven from the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith.

Walter Gropius

Let us together create the new building of the future, which will be everything in one form: architecture and sculpture and painting.

Walter Gropius

Our guiding principle was that design is neither an intellectual nor a material affair, but simply an integral part of the stuff of life, necessary for everyone in a civilized society.

Walter Gropius

In all great epochs of history, the existence of standards - that is, the conscious adoption of type-forms - has been the criterion of a polite, well-ordered society; for it is a commonplace that repetition of the same things for the same purpose exercises a settling and civilizing influence on men's minds.

Walter Gropius

Good architecture should be a projection of life itself, and that implies an intimate knowledge of biological, social, technical, and artistic problems.

Walter Gropius

We are in the midst of a momentous catastrophe of world history, of a transformation of all aspects of life and of the entire inner human being This is perhaps fortunate for the artistic person, if he is strong enough to bear the consequences, because what we need is the courage to have inner experience.

Walter Gropius

Proficiency in a craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies the prime source of creative imagination. Let us then create a new guild of craftsmen without the class distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist!

Walter Gropius