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? Walter Gropius More Quotes by Walter Gropius More Quotes From Walter Gropius The ultimate aim of all creative activity is the building! Walter Gropius activity aim building creative Let us together create the new building of the future, which will be everything in one form: architecture and sculpture and painting. Walter Gropius painting future architecture together The Bauhaus strives to bring together all creative effort into one whole, to reunify all the disciplines of practical art - sculpture, painting, handicrafts, and crafts - as inseparable components of a new architecture. Walter Gropius painting architecture together art The ultimate, if distant, aim of the Bauhaus is the unified work of art - the great structure - in which there is no distinction between monumental and decorative art. Walter Gropius great aim work art 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. Walter Gropius nature change blessing relationship The mere drawing and painting world of the pattern designer and the applied artist must become a world that builds again. Walter Gropius painting drawing artist world I cannot imagine myself fitting into the existing curriculum. I am too self-willed for that and have had my own very definite ideas for a long time, very different from the existing ways, as to how architecture is to be taught. Walter Gropius i-am myself architecture time 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 new creative artist imagination Under trees, the urban dweller might restore his troubled soul and find the blessing of a creative pause. Walter Gropius trees creative soul blessing The greatest responsibility of the planner and architect, I believe, is the protection and development of our habitat. Walter Gropius development responsibility believe 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. Walter Gropius teachers will day school 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. Walter Gropius building effort today character 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 will examination tyranny fear New synthetic substances - steel, concrete, glass - are actively superseding the traditional raw materials of construction. Walter Gropius glass new construction steel I am livid with rage, sitting here in chains through this mad war which kills any meaning of life... My nerves are shattered and my mind darkened. Walter Gropius i-am mind war life 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 experience courage life history 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. Walter Gropius slow new culture world Architects, sculptors painters, we all must return to the crafts! For art is not a 'profession.' There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. Walter Gropius difference return artist art 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. Walter Gropius study creative time way 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. Walter Gropius time forget happiness world
