ABSTRACT
In 1919, Walter Gropius moved to Weimar to begin his directorship at the Großherzoglich-Sächsische Kunstgewerbeschule, as successor of the Belgian architect Henri van de Velde. At this time, Gropius and Meyer resumed their architecture practice; their first notable commission was the Expressionist masterpiece, Sommerfeld House. Gropius focused on the arts, not politics; as Christian Schädlich asserts, "Gropius conducted the critique of society from an essentially moral and not political position. He held himself consciously distant from all party politics because he believed that they would only hinder him from realizing his artistic goals". That Gropius did not contribute any visionary drawings to Expressionist groups and their exhibitions is not surprising, given his inability to draw. By 1923, Gropius' ideas about the proper relationship between art and industry had evolved and matured. He opened the 1923 Bauhaus Exhibition with well-known speech "Kunst und Technik—Eine neue Einheit", which marked a significant turn away from original Bauhaus slogan, "Art and Craft—A New Unity".
