Walter Gropius Quotes

• Limitation makes the creative mind inventive.

  Walter Gropius

  Creative, Mind, Creative Mind

  162 Copy quote

• The mind is like an umbrella. Its most useful when open.

  Walter Gropius

  Leadership, Mind, Umbrella

  152 Copy quote

• Our guiding principle was that design is neither an intellectual nor a material affair, but simply an integral part of the stuff of life, necessary for everyone in a civilized society.

  Walter Gropius

  Guiding Principles, Design, Intellectual

  "Form and Function", www.interviewmagazine.com. July 23, 2009.

  158 Copy quote

• The Bauhaus fights imitation, inferior craftsmanship and artistic dilettantism

  Walter Gropius

  Fighting, Artistic, Imitation

  139 Copy quote

• Society needs a good image of itself. That is the job of the architect.

  Walter Gropius

  Jobs, Needs, Architecture

  98 Copy quote

• The ultimate aim of all artistic activity is building! ... Architects, sculptors, painters, we must all get back to craft! ... The artist is a heightened manifestation of the craftsman. ... Let us form ... a new guild of craftsmen without the class divisions that set out to raise an arrogant barrier between craftsmen and artists! ... Let us together create the new building of the future which will be all in one: architecture and sculpture and painting.

  Walter Gropius

  Artist, Class, Together

  149 Copy quote

• We want to create the purely organic building, boldly emanating its inner laws, free of untruths or ornamentation.

  Walter Gropius

  Law, Want, Building

  115 Copy quote

• Only work which is the product of inner compulsion can have spiritual meaning.

  Walter Gropius

  Spiritual, Art, Compulsion

  128 Copy quote

• Art itself cannot be taught, but craftsmanship can. Architects, painters, sculptors are all craftsmen in the original sense of the word. Thus it is a fundamental requirement of all artistic creativity that every student undergo a thorough training in the workshops of all branches of the crafts.

  Walter Gropius

  Art, Creativity, Training

  "Paul Klee, 1879-1940: Poet of Colours, Masters of Lines". Book by Paul Klee and Susanna Partsch, p. 47, 2000.

  108 Copy quote

• A modern building should derive its architectural significance solely from the vigour and consequence of its own organic proportions. It must be true to itself, logically transparent, and virginal of lies or trivialities.

  Walter Gropius

  Lying, Design, Building

  109 Copy quote

• A modern, harmonic and lively architecture is the visible sign of authentic democracy.

  Walter Gropius

  Democracy, Architecture, Modern

  "Words of Art: Inspiring Quotes from the Masters". Book published by Adams Media, 2013.

  90 Copy quote
• 

  Architecture begins where engineering ends.

  Walter Gropius

  Engineering, Design, Architecture

  Speech at Harvard Department of Architecture. "Architects on Architecture". Book by Paul Heyer, 1966.

  84 Copy quote

• Specialists are people who always repeat the same mistakes.

  Walter Gropius

  Mistake, People, Specialists

  71 Copy quote

• If your contribution has been vital there will always be somebody to pick up where you left off, and that will be your claim to immortality.

  Walter Gropius

  Immortality, Claims, Contribution

  66 Copy quote

• However often the thread may be torn out of your hands, you must develop enough patience to wind it up again and again.

  Walter Gropius

  Hands, Wind, May

  58 Copy quote

• Architects, painters, and sculptors must recognize anew and learn to grasp the composite character of a building both as an entity and in its separate parts. Only then will their work be imbued with the architectonic spirit which it has lost as salon art. Together let us desire, conceive, and create the new structure of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will one day rise toward heaven from the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith.

  Walter Gropius

  Art, Character, Hands

  "The Bauhaus Proclamation April 1919" (1919)

  89 Copy quote

• Children should be introduced right from the start to the potentialities of their environment, to the physical and psychological laws that govern the visual world, and to the supreme enjoyment that comes from participating in the creative process of giving form to one's living space.

  Walter Gropius

  Children, Law, Space

  Walter Gropius, Ise Gropius (1968). “Apollo in the democracy: the cultural obligation of the architect”

  74 Copy quote

• How can we expect our students to become bold and fearless in thought and action if we encase them in sentimental shrines feigning a culture which has long since disappeared?

  Walter Gropius

  Long, Fearless, Culture

  68 Copy quote

• Since art is dead in the actual life of civilized nations, it has been relegated to these grotesque morgues, museums.

  Walter Gropius

  Art, Museums, Civilized Nations

  46 Copy quote

• Architects, painters, and sculptors must recognize anew and learn to grasp the composite character of a building both as an entity and in its separate parts. Only then will their work be imbued with the architectonic spirit . . .

  Walter Gropius

  Character, Spirit, Building

  "The Bauhaus Proclamation April 1919" (1919)

  46 Copy quote

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