Located in Lincoln, Massachusetts, is the home of one of the most influential architects of 20^th century, Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus design school. Built in 1938, the home’s design, furnishings and landscape are based on the notion of simplicity and efficiency. I love how he used materials of the region to express the design of the house – stone foundation, wood siding (turned vertically) and brick in combination with materials of the 20^th Century such as glass block at the front vestibule and large plate glass windows. Inside the house, what we consider to be commonplace today was revolutionary at the time – industrial light fixtures, chrome balustrades, acoustical plaster, etc.  There are seminal moments or events in time that one can easily identify and say, “This is when it all changed.” I consider this house to be an example of such a moment.

It was interesting to find the following quote by Gropius in which he argued against the label of International Style and my notion of the seminal moment.

“As to my practice, when I built my first house in the USA – which was my own – I made it a point to absorb into my own conception those features of New England architectural tradition that I found still alive and adequate. This fusion of the regional spirit with a contemporary approach to design produced a house that I would never have built in Europe with its entirely different climactic, technical and physiological background.”

Walter Gropius, Scope of Total Architecture, 1956

Now a national landmark, The Gropius House has been maintained by Historic New England with the interiors unchanged. For information about touring The Gropius House, visit historicnewengland.org. Photographs below by Josh Kuchinsky.