Walter Gropius: arquitectura y planeamiento

The Bauhaus did not deal with producing designs of ephemeral commercial objects. It was a research laboratory primarily of design problems of all kinds. Teachers and students managed to give their work a homogeneity based not on stylistic external details, but on a fundamental design approach, resulting in standard products rather than novelties. The purpose of the Bauhaus was to exert a life-giving influence on the design, and not to propagate any style, system or dogma. We were looking for an approach to education to promote a state of mind and thus collaborate to restore contemporary architecture and design as a social art. Together with their professors, chosen from the list of the most advanced painters, sculptors and architects of the time, we believed that it was essential to select talented young people before they had surrendered to the conformity of the industrial community or had isolated themselves in towers of ivory. We intended to train them to cover the gap between the rigid mentality of the businessman and the technician, and the imagination of the creative artist. We wanted our students to reconcile with the machine without sacrificing their initiative so that they could thus bring a sense of order and beauty to mass production, architecture and community planning.