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

The mind is like an umbrella. Its most useful when open. — Walter Gropius

The strong desire to include every vital component of life instead of excluding part of them for the sake of too narrow and dogmatic an approach has characterized my whole life. — Walter Gropius

Society needs a good image of itself. That is the job of the architect. — Walter Gropius

I feel very German–and who can make himself a judge over what is German and what is not–in my ideas and the ideas of my spiritual brothers of German origin. — Walter Gropius

The greatest responsibility of the planner and architect, I believe, is the protection and development of our habitat. — Walter Gropius

Under trees, the urban dweller might restore his troubled soul and find the blessing of a creative pause. — Walter Gropius

Capitalism and power politics have made our generation creatively sluggish, and our vital art is mired in a broad bourgeois philistinism. — Walter Gropius

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

Our fresh technical resources have furthered the disintegration of solid masses of masonry into slender piers, with consequent far–reaching economies in bulk, space, weight, and haulage. — Walter Gropius

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

Limitation makes the creative mind inventive. — Walter Gropius

The days of the painter at the Bauhaus appear to be truly over. They are estranged from the actual core of present activities, and their influence is more restricting than inspiring. — Walter Gropius

The mere drawing and painting world of the pattern designer and the applied artist must become a world that builds again. — Walter Gropius

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

The school is the servant of the workshop and will one day be absorbed in it. Therefore there will be no teachers or pupils in the Bauhaus but masters, journeymen, and apprentices. — Walter Gropius

Only work which is the product of inner compulsion can have spiritual meaning. — Walter Gropius

Good architecture should be a projection of life itself, and that implies an intimate knowledge of biological, social, technical, and artistic problems. — Walter Gropius

Overwhelmed by the miraculous potentialities of the machine, our human greed has interfered with the biological cycle of human companionship which keeps the life of a community healthy. — Walter Gropius

The fear that individuality will be crushed out by the growing ‘tyranny’ of standardization is the sort of myth which cannot withstand the briefest examination. — Walter Gropius

Man has evolved a mutual relationship with nature on earth, but his power to change its surface has grown so tremendously that this may become a curse instead of a blessing. — Walter Gropius

I am livid with rage, sitting here in chains through this mad war which kills any meaning of life… My nerves are shattered and my mind darkened. — Walter Gropius

Wherever I go I make others feel good, and by doing this, I create life. I am a sting, and a dangerous instrument! — Walter Gropius

One of the outstanding achievements of the new constructional technique has been the abolition of the separating function of the wall. — Walter Gropius

Specialists are people who always repeat the same mistakes. — Walter Gropius