1: "Rediscovery and Rebirth" -- Gropius in Chicago Coalition event (Monday, July 6)

Exactly 40 years ago, July 6, 1969, Walter Gropius died at the age of 86. This date also represents roughly 50 years after Walter Gropius left the Michael Reese Hospital project in Chicago.

The Gropius in Chicago Coalition commemorated this important date, and the lasting impact Walter Gropius had on Chicago, with a public reading of selections from Gropius’s numerous speeches and essays.

The theme of the event was the “Rediscovery and Rebirth” of the Michael Reese Hospital Campus, which is Gropius’s only built project in Illinois. The speeches focused on Gropius’s urban planning vision, his commitment to collaboration, and his ideas on how to address lingering issues confronting the arts and society as a whole.

A visionary and gifted writer, Gropius’s talents in written expression helped propel his architectural vision into a major world movement, as promoted by the Bauhaus and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Most of his insights and predictions into societal challenges remain poignant today, perhaps even more so than when they were first expressed.

The collaborative nature of The Bauhaus: 90 Years / 90 Days closely follows Gropius’s notions of “Unity in Diversity,” a credo Gropius referred to frequently in his career. Gropius used this expression to describe the spirit behind the Bauhaus’s uniquely synergistic movement in the arts, but also as the goal of his city planning vision. The Michael Reese Campus, with its strong collection of varied architecture, bound together by a common set of goals, approaches, and methodologies, is an excellent and rare example of Gropius’s Unity in Diversity in a built environment.

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