Furniture Designs, 1929-1932: Sofa: elevations, sections, 1:10

1919–1928

Bauhaus teachers: Klee, Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy

Gropius’s school attracted a faculty that included Paul Klee, Johannes Itten, Josef Albers, Herbert Bayer, László Moholy-Nagy, Otto Bartning and Wassily Kandinsky. The Bauhaus programme was experimental, with the emphasis on theory.

1928

Leaves the Bauhaus and moves to Berlin

Hannes Meyer took over as director of the school; Gropius moved to Berlin and became a lecturer at the Marxist Workers’ School, founded and run by the Communist Party of Germany — other Bauhaus members also lectured there and even supplied it with furniture.

30 July 1932 – 14 August 1932

Took part in: 1932 Summer Olympics

1933

The Nazis close the Bauhaus

In 1933 the Nazis closed the Bauhaus; before that the school had been run by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, after Hannes Meyer was removed in late 1930 and left for the USSR with several students.

1934

Flight to England on the pretext of a trip to Italy

His association with “degenerate” modern art, despised by the Nazis, left him without commissions, and in 1934 Gropius, with the help of Maxwell Fry, left Germany on the pretext of a temporary visit to Italy for a film propaganda festival, and from there fled to the United Kingdom.

1934–1937

Hampstead: Herbert Read’s circle and the Isokon group

In London Gropius lived and worked in the artists’ community associated with Herbert Read in Hampstead, as part of the Isokon group.