Gropius House facts for kids
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Gropius House
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U.S. Historic district
Contributing property |
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Gropius House, front view
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 Location in Massachusetts
Location in the United States
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| Location | 68 Baker Bridge Road, Lincoln, Massachusetts |
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| Area | 5.51 acres (22,300 m2) |
| Part of | Woods End Road Historic District (ID88000956) |
| NRHP reference No. | 00000709 |
Quick facts for kids Significant dates |
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| Added to NRHP | May 16, 2000 |
| Designated NHL | May 16, 2000 |
| Designated CP | July 8, 1988 |
The Gropius House is a special historic house museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, United States. It was the home of Walter Gropius, a very famous architect who helped create a style called Modernism. He lived here with his wife, Ise Gropius, and their daughter, Ati. The house is important because it shows Gropius's ideas about modern design. It also has a unique collection of items from the Bauhaus art school, which Gropius led.
Contents
History of the Gropius House
Walter Gropius was the first director of the Bauhaus school in Germany. He believed in mixing new technologies with everyday needs. He also thought that architecture and art should be equally important.
Gropius and his family moved to the United States from London. They had lived in London to avoid the Nazi government in Germany. Gropius came to Massachusetts to teach at Harvard University's design school. A kind person named Helen Storrow gave him land and money to build his home.
Gropius designed the house in 1937, and it was built in 1938. He used his new home to show his students how modern design could look in America. He chose the area because it was close to Concord Academy, where his daughter Ati would go to school. The Gropius House was his home from 1938 until he passed away in 1969.
Friends and Fellow Architects
Marcel Breuer, another architect and friend of the Gropius family, also came to the U.S. to teach at Harvard. Helen Storrow gave Breuer land next to Gropius's home. Both architects helped each other build their houses. Gropius's house was finished in 1938, and Breuer's in 1939.
Today, the Gropius House still displays furniture designed by Marcel Breuer. It also has artworks by famous artists like Eero Saarinen, Joan Miró, and Herbert Bayer. These were gifts they gave to Walter Gropius.
Architecture and Design of the House
Gropius's Design Ideas
Walter Gropius believed a house should be light, full of sunshine, and useful for the people living in it. He said a home should not look like a "fortress" or a "monument." Instead, it should be simple, modern, and easy to change.
He also thought the layout of a house was very important. He wanted rooms to flow freely, without artificial symmetry. This meant short hallways and clear areas for living, sleeping, and cooking. He also made sure bedrooms got morning sun and living rooms got southern or western light.
Inside the Gropius House
The Gropius House blends traditional New England materials with new industrial ones. It uses wood, brick, and stone, but also glass blocks, special acoustic plaster, and steel. The house has a wooden frame, covered with white-painted wood siding. Inside the foyer, traditional clapboards are used vertically to make the space feel taller. These clapboards also made it easy to hang and change artworks.
The house has a combined living and dining room, a kitchen, an office, and a sewing room. It also has three bedrooms and four bathrooms. All the bathrooms are in one corner to save space and plumbing. One unique feature is the flat roof. While most homes in the area had sloped roofs, Gropius designed his flat roof to tilt slightly. This allowed rainwater to drain into a special dry well.
Ati's Special Bedroom
When the house was built, Walter and Ise's adopted daughter, Ati, was 12 years old. Gropius made sure Ati was happy and let her help design her bedroom. Ati chose the warm colors and much of her furniture. This included a desk Gropius had designed years earlier at the Bauhaus.
Ati's room is the largest bedroom and has its own entrance with a cool spiral staircase. She wanted a sand floor and a glass ceiling, which Gropius couldn't do. But he did give her a private roof deck. This way, she could sleep under the stars!
The Landscape Around the House
Designing the Outdoor Space
Following the Bauhaus ideas, every part of the house and its outdoor space was planned to be useful and simple. Gropius carefully placed the house to fit in with the New England nature. He believed the garden was just as important as the house itself.
The house sits on a grassy hill, surrounded by stone walls. It is near wetlands and a large apple orchard with 90 trees. The Gropiuses let the orchard grow naturally, only mowing it sometimes. Gropius wanted the outdoor space to feel "civilized." He created a lawn around the house and a garden by the porch. Even though the land is mostly flat, they kept the woods clear to have wide views. The screened porch helped divide the outdoor space into different "rooms," just like inside the house.
Ise Gropius's Garden
Before the house was even finished, Walter Gropius was already planning the landscape. He moved mature trees from the nearby forest to his yard. Ise Gropius was the main gardener in the family. She and Walter chose trees like Scotch pine, white pine, elm, oak, and American beech to match the area.
They also added large rocks and wooden frames covered with pink climbing roses and Concord grapevines. Ise spent many hours each week planting and caring for the garden. She also kept more than a dozen bird feeders and bird houses, and she knew many of the birds personally! After a trip to Japan in the 1950s, Ise changed the garden. She removed the flowers and covered the ground with gray gravel. Then, she planted azaleas, candytuft, cotoneaster, and a large red-leafed Japanese maple tree.
Gallery
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1938 Walter Gropius house, Lincoln, Massachusetts
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Gropius House, view from side rear
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A marker
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Interior staircase
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Outdoor shower at the back of the house
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View from driveway
Preservation of the Gropius House
In 1974, five years after Walter Gropius passed away, Ise Gropius gave the house to a group called the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. This group is now known as Historic New England. Ise continued to live in the house for the rest of her life. In 1984, a year after Ise's death, the home officially became a museum. Today, the Gropius House is open for people to visit and learn about its history and design.
See also
In Spanish: Casa Gropius para niños
