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| Walter Gropius (www.bostonhometeam.com) |
Speaking in the
Crystal Room of the Blackstone Hotel the Director of the School of Architecture
at Harvard University, Walter Gropius, addressed a large crowd on this date,
April 17, of 1950. According to the
account of the address in The Chicago
Tribune Mr. Gropius stated that “The recent wedding of art and industry in
the United States has opened a doorway upon a new era.” [Chicago Tribune, April 18, 1950]
The occasion
featured the formal announcement that the Institute of Design would be added as
a degree-granting department within the engineering division of the Illinois
Institute of Technology. The Institute
of Design was a direct descendant of the “New Bauhaus school” that was established
in Chicago in 1937 by Mr. Gropius and László Naholy Nagy. Both men, along with the Director of
Architecture at I.I.T., Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, were instrumental figures in
the German Bauhaus school.
“When I came to
this country in 1928, I remember that a highly honorable trade mark for
products designated for cultural distinction was ‘Imported from Europe,’” said
Mr. Gropius. “Our industrial products
will not only excel by good quality of their materials and manufacturing
processed used, but also by the inherent beauty of their indigenous design.”
“The artist,” he
continued, “is coming back into the fold of the community. From his ivory tower he will move closer to
the latest laboratory and to the factory; he will become a legitimate brother
of the scientist, the engineer, and the business man.”
Do you suppose,
somewhere along the line, Steve Jobs got hold of that address?
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