Architecture in the Age of Science

Abstract

As Founding Director of the Bauhaus and Chairman of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, Walter Gropius was one of the most important architectural educators of the twentieth century. In this postwar article Gropius argues for architecture as a collective enterprise rather than as the work of the divinely gifted and inspired individual. The example he cites is The Architects’ Collaborative, which he established in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1945. In this collaboration of a group of independently minded spirits on the same design project, Gropius envisions a fusion of art, science, and economics as the architecture paradigm of the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Walter Gropius
• post-1945 architecture
• building team
• social change
• architectural profession
• The Architects’ Collaborative

Notes

1 Translator’s note: The German word for architect has the masculine gender: der Architekt, taking the pronouns er and sein in German, he and his in English. This gender specificity was reinforced at the time Gropius wrote this text, when the overwhelming majority of architects were men. Rather than modify this perception to accord with contemporary sensibilities, this translation adheres to the spirit of the original. It should be noted, however, that two of the eight founder members of The Architects’ Collaborative were women: Jean B. Fletcher (1915-1969) and Sarah Harkness (1914-2013).

2 Translator’s note: all words in italics in this translation are in English in the original text.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Walter Gropius

Translated from German by Iain Boyd Whyte

Originally published as “Architektur im Zeitalter der Wissenschaft,” in Der Monat, 4, no. 39 (December 1951): 314–8. Excerpts from pp. 314, 316–17, 318.