Margret Kentgens Craig

Podstrony

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.3.12.31 2nd evening by Imre Weisshaus17.12.31 Visit by O.K.Mutesius, New York.31.1.32 Visitor to the Bauhaus: Walter John Hutchausen, New York.10.3.32 B.Sommer, visitor from New York.For the summer semester, the following guests were listed:20.4.32.Davis Barr from Berkeley, Cal., European Importations, visits theBauhaus.24.4.32 Visitor.Henriette Kingsley (USA).12.5.32.Documentations in the New York Times may be carried out.19.5.32.John Justin Cou, Cleveland, Ohio.Until 24.5.various guests from Cleveland.1.7.32 Visit by the legation secretary A v.Wirthenau, Washington.5.8.32 Visitor: among others, Jan Rovedlova, Baltimore.15.8.32 Visitor: Prof.Fischer, Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh.30.8.32.The newspapers are taking a stand on the Bauhaus issue.There aremore visitors to guide around each day, among them:.Anna M.Seipp,New York, B.L.Baiswald, Michigan, Alice Seipp, Senator, airplane pilot; J.Ostsander, Michigan; James W.Barbershown, New York.7.9.32 Visitor: Prof.Fr.A.Cutbert, University of Oregon.21.9.32.Visitor: Ralph B.Busser, American consul, Leipzig.For most American visitors, professional associations with firms or institutions arenoted along with place of residence.To judge from these notations, many of the guestswere professors at large universities, such as Harvard, the Carnegie Institute of Technol-ogy, and the University of Oregon.On their return to the United States, these peoplecould provide solid information on the Bauhaus under the direction of Mies and werethus able to contribute to a more enlightened reception of his work.167 The temporalcorrespondence between the American Bauhaus visits on the one hand and the increaseof information on Mies available in the States proves that his tenure as director had agreater influence on his growing renown in that country than has often been assumed.After the First World War, European architects and artists felt an increasing needto experience the United States firsthand.In 1924, the Bauhaus teacher and painterGeorg Muche spent several weeks in New York.Katherine Dreier introduced him toAmerican artists there and asked him to paint for an exhibition of the Soci�t�Anonyme, of which she was the president.The group regularly mounted small modern85 EXPLICIT INFORMATION ABOUT THE BAUHAUSart exhibitions during the 1920s and 1930s, mostly in the cultural centers of the eastcoast.Also in 1924, the director Fritz Lang and the architects Martin Wagner, ErichMendelsohn, Werner Hegemann, and Friedrich Paulsen visited various Americancities, as did Ernst May in 1925.Some two years earlier, Gropius had also toyed withthe idea of visiting the States.In a letter to an American friend, he admitted: I havefor years wished to make my acquaintance with America because I know that manyideas to which I subscribe have flourished in your country much more than they havehere.A trip to America would be especially important for me. 168 Hoping to finance histrip through lectures, Gropius established contact with other Americans.It was notuntil 1928, however, that he could realize his wish, thanks to the financial support ofhis former client, the businessman Adolf Sommerfeld, and possibly of the Carl-SchurzAssociation in Berlin.This trip, undertaken with Sommerfeld and Ise Gropius, wasextraordinarily important for Walter Gropius s connections in the United States.Hecame into contact with people who would, only a few years later, play a decisive role inhis appointment to Harvard University and in the further reception of the Bauhaus ingeneral.On 7 April 1928 the group arrived in New York.Gropius s aim was to becomeconversant with the structure and organization of the building industry and organiza-tional processes in American timber construction.The seven-week trip continued toWashington, Chicago, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Detroit, Dearborn and Pontiac,Michigan, and other locations.It led to encounters with prominent representatives ofAmerican urban planning, the building industry, the cultural scene, and architecture.Gropius came to know many architects and people involved with universities as well asmany businessmen and members of the building industry.He met Albert Kahn inDetroit and Richard Neutra in Los Angeles.In New York, he established contact withimportant professional organizations, businessmen, and government officials, includingthe construction firm Thompson, Staret, Harris, Hegemann & Butts; the Taylor Soci-ety, involved in industrial production and productivity; the Dow Service, which wasresponsible for assessing construction costs; the New York City Planning Commission,and the National Bureau of Standards.In New York, he also met Barr, Mumford, Al-bert Lasker, and Ross McIver, the architects Harvey Wiley Corbett and Henry Wright,the housing experts Clarence Stein and Carol Aronovici, the urban planning pioneerErnest Goodrich, the journalist and writer Henry Louis Mencken, the banker FelixWarburg, and the chairman of the board of the New York Trust, Pierre Jay.The ac-quaintances that would prove most significant to Gropius s future in the United States167 Die letzten Semester des Bauhauses, in Peter Hahn, Bauhaus Berlin, 31 38, 55 61.168 Walter Gropius, letter to Herman Sachs, dated 27 January 1922, Staatarchiv Weimar, quoted inSch�dlich, Die Beziehungen des Bauhauses zu den USA, 65.86 THE DISSEMINATION OF BAUHAUS IDEAS2.11 Walter Gropius, portrait taken during his trip through the United States, 1928.(Photograph presumably by IseGropius; print by Markus Hawlik, 1997, after original negative.Bauhaus-Archiv, Berlin.)87 EXPLICIT INFORMATION ABOUT THE BAUHAUSwere with Joseph Hudnut, later dean of the architecture school at Harvard University;Lawrence Kocher, editor of Architectural Record; and Robert Davison of the researchinstitute on housing at Columbia University.Davison had never before heard ofGropius.169 It is safe to assume that both parties benefited from these encounters, all ofwhich Gropius recorded in his travelogue: Gropius certainly relayed information ondevelopments in German architecture and building as well as on the Bauhaus.In retro-spect, he described his first trip to America as a journey of experiences, but it was morethan that: it laid the foundations for his future career.Even before embarking on thetrip, he had written to Dorothy Thompson describing the planned visit and asking forletters of introduction, not only to important private citizens but also to members ofthe American press.170 His desire for publicity in the United States was also apparent ina conversation he had with a German newspaper correspondent whom he had met a fewdays after his arrival in New York.He complained that the media attention he expectedand to which he was accustomed had been absent thus far because the New Yorkers hadnot been advised of his visit in a timely manner.171 Initially he had intended to givelectures, but at that time he was not fluent enough in English.So he postponed theplan for a second trip.172 Back in Germany, he wrote J.B.Neumann: I have returnedfrom America with precious gains, and I have truly come to love this country. 173Gropius maintained his American contacts after his return to Berlin.Variouspieces by both his wife and himself in professional publications kept him in the publiceye [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

bezglutenowo.pev.pl