Photograph by Eric Roth
How Gropius brought the Bauhaus to New England by MELISSA VENATOR Stefan Engelhorn Curatorial Fellow in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University
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Historic New England Winter 2019
THE AREA AROUND LINCOLN, MASSACHUSETTS, IS famous for the Revolutionary “shot heard round the world� in nearby Concord and the natural beauty that inspired Henry David Thoreau to live on Walden Pond in the midnineteenth century. In 1937 this historical heart of New England became the unlikely epicenter of an architectural revolution with the arrival of Walter Gropius. Famous for founding the Bauhaus school of art, design, and architecture in Germany in 1919, Gropius accepted an invitation to teach at Harvard University in part to escape the Nazi persecution that closed the school in 1933. He had a clear mission to imprint the United States with Bauhaus values starting with his home in Lincoln, which he designed and built on land and with financing provided by philanthropist Helen O. Storrow. More than a private residence, it served as a show house where Walter, his wife,
