International Architecture

Walter Gropius was an architect and architectural theorist who, with his International Architecture, launched the Bauhausbücher series in 1925. Gropius is the legendary founder of the Bauhaus, the art school that had a tremendous impact on the development of architecture, design, textiles, painting, and theater in Europe and the United States.

This book series was part of a very ambitious project by Gropius and László Moholy-Nagy, one of the most important artists of the last century and also one of the school’s most influential professors, closely associated with Gropius. The Bauhausbücher series was intended to include at least thirty titles, written by artists and architects affiliated with the school, focusing on the Bauhaus approach to life and art. However, the series was never fully completed and ended with volume 14.

International Architecture is the first book in the series, authored by Gropius, while the layout and editing were done by Moholy-Nagy (who handled these tasks for the entire series). 

In this book, Gropius explores the architecture of his time, focusing only on buildings that reflect a new aesthetic, one that abandons decoration in favor of efficiency, functionality, and harmony of form. 

This would later be known as the International Style, and Gropius illustrates it in this book with a series of beautiful photographs, featuring renowned names such as Rietveld, Le Corbusier, Oud, Lloyd Wright, and Gropius himself.