Overview

The impact of Walter Gropius can be measured in his buildings--Fagus Factory, Bauhaus Dessau, Pan Amb--but no less in his students. I. M. Pei, Paul Rudolph, Anni Albers, Philip Johnson, Fumihiko Maki: countless masters were once disciples at the Bauhaus in Berlin and at Harvard. Between 1910 and 1930, Gropius was at the center of European modernism and avant-garde society glamour, only to be exiled to the antimodernist United Kingdom during the Nazi years. Later, under the democratizing influence of American universities, Gropius became an advocate of public art and cemented a starring role in twentieth-century architecture and design. Fiona MacCarthy challenges the image of Gropius as a doctrinaire architectural rationalist, bringing out the visionary philosophy and courage that carried him through a politically hostile age. Pilloried by Tom Wolfe as inventor of the monolithic high-rise, Gropius is better remembered as inventor of a form of art education that influenced schools worldwide. He viewed argument as intrinsic to creativity. Unusually for one in his position, Gropius encouraged women's artistic endeavors and sought equal romantic partners. Though a traveler in elite circles, he objected to the cloistering of beauty as a special privilege for the aesthetically initiated.

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"Fiona MacCarthy is the author of William Morris: A Life for Our Time, winner of the Wolfson History Prize and the Writers' Guild Nonfiction Award; and the well-received Byron: Life and Legend. A former design correspondent for the Guardian and architecture critic for the Observer, she has curated exhibits at the Victoria & Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery in London. MacCarthy is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Senior Fellow at the Royal College of Art. Jennifer Dixon is a retired board-certified music therapist, licensed counselor, and veteran of the Michigan Opera and several community theaters, that has explored the power of words and music to motivate, inspire, provoke, soothe, and heal-all of which she brings to her work as an audiobook narrator. Even though she was born within the sound of Bow Bells in London England (now residing in the beautiful state of Michigan), Jennifer has a ""proper old-fashioned BBC sound, with American overtones,"" but can conjure up her cockney side if need be!"

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