CEE120:'Professor'Hines' ' Final'Paper:'Understanding'Design'Decision' '
Nov.23,'2013' Anne'Zhou'
but parallel experiments are being carried out. Modernism was moving towards abstraction based on line, color, shape, space, and texture. CONTEXT: AMERICA (GSD) Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) was founded in 1895. The history of GSD is important in understanding American Modernism, because the school played a critical part in shaping the course of modern architecture and the modern city. The programs later became models for other institutions; the students became teachers of schools that lead modernist ideas and practicing architects started advocate modernism throughout the United States. With modern movement happening in Europe around 1920s, American top universities were still offering Americanized Beaux-Arts programs despite criticism from both students and people who are interested in modern design. When the Depression hit, teachers, students, and architects joined forces to argue that the theories of the French system is not suitable for the mass unemployment at the time. As the Depression helped loosen the hold of the Beaux-Arts system in schools, Joseph Hudnut brought Walter Gropius to the GSD in 1937. The Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius transformed Harvard’s old Beaux-Arts school to a radically new school. Gropius promotes his Bauhaus philosophy at the GSD, especially through the creation of Basic Design preliminary course modeled on that of the German school. Figure 4 and Figure 5 are a comparison of two studio projects in America before and after Gropius came to GSD, demonstrating the change in schools. First project is at Columbia in 1917 when schools in America were still promoting the French Beaux-Arts, the second project is Gropius’s studio project in 1946. The comparison also illustrates GSD’s role in American
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