Walter Gropius Vouches for Max Bill

The Second World War had left Ulm in ruins. In his role as architect, Bill designed a new campus on the Kuhberg overlooking the city below. He also took up the post of founding president and lecturer of architecture. As Ulm lay in the American-controled zone at the time, any appointments to public positions required approval from the U.S. occupying forces.

Bill received significant support from Walter Gropius, who had served as director of the Bauhaus during Bill’s student days there in Dessau. Gropius had fled to the U.S.A. in the 1930s, becoming an American citizen in 1944. He taught at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard. Writing to John McCloy, Gropius vouched for the suitability of his former Bauhaus student for the role. Indeed, Gropius visited Ulm in person in fall 1955 to deliver a speech at the opening ceremony of its School of Design. Only a few months earlier, West Germany had effectively gained the authority of a sovereign state