Quotes from Walter Gropius

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.

The development of the New Architecture encountered serious obstacles at a very early stage of its development. Conflicting theories and the dogmas enunciated in architects' personal manifestos all helped to confuse the main issue.

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

Today the arts exist in isolation, from which they can be rescued only through the conscious, cooperative effort of all craftsmen. Architects, painters, and sculptors must recognize anew and learn to grasp the composite character of a building both as an entity and in its separate parts.

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.

The school is the servant of the workshop and will one day be absorbed in it. Therefore there will be no teachers or pupils in the Bauhaus but masters, journeymen, and apprentices.

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.

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

New synthetic substances - steel, concrete, glass - are actively superseding the traditional raw materials of construction.

The intellectual bourgeois of the old Empire - tepid and unimaginative, mentally slow, arrogant, and incorrectly trained - has proven his incapacity to be the bearer of German culture. His benumbed world is now toppled, its spirit is overthrown, and is in the midst of being recast into a new mold.

Man has evolved a mutual relationship with nature on earth, but his power to change its surface has grown so tremendously that this may become a curse instead of a blessing.

Society needs a good image of itself. That is the job of the architect.

How can we expect our students to become bold and fearless in thought and action if we encase them in sentimental shrines feigning a culture which has long since disappeared?

We must forget the prewar time, which was totally different. The sooner we adjust ourselves to the new, changed world, to its new, albeit harsh, beauties, the sooner will each individual be able to find his own personal happiness. The distress of Germany will spiritualize and deepen us.

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!

The problem of the minimum dwelling is that of establishing the elementary minimum of space, air, light, and heat required by man in order that he be able to fully develop his life functions without experiencing limitations due to his dwelling, i.e. a minimum modus vivendi in place of a modus non moriendi.

The ultimate aim of all creative activity is the building!

Specialists are people who always repeat the same mistakes.

Architecture begins where engineering ends.

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.

With but a few exceptions, we don't have this personal study under masters any more. Craftsmanship has sunk very low. We no longer have any universally creative persons who are able to guide young learners not only in technical matters but also, at the same time, in a formal way.

As there is in Germany - as well as in Russia and Italy - no art which is not approved of by the government, any criticizing remark about the present policy made by me would easily be taken as a hostile act. I cannot have my name put up against an official report from Germany without risking very unpleasant consequences.

Under trees, the urban dweller might restore his troubled soul and find the blessing of a creative pause.

The utilization of flat roofs as 'grounds' offers us a means of re-acclimatizing nature amidst the stony deserts of our great towns; for the plots from which she has been evicted to make room for buildings can be given back to her up aloft.