Berlin promotes Bauhaus legacy with new Gropius app

Starting on October 7, the free app "Gropius to Go" will lead visitors to Berlin's most significant landmarks of Bauhaus art and architecture, Simone Dornbusch from Berlin's state monument bureau announced on Monday.

The app, which will be available for iOS and Android, will offer information about the life and work of Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, provide tours of Berlin's UNESCO-listed Modernism Housing Estates (pictured above), and include interactive maps of all of Gropius' buildings and artworks in the city.

The father of modernist architecture

Berliner Walter Gropius (1883-1969) is considered to have been a pioneer of modernist architecture, together with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. Gropius' philosophy was to seek unity of all the arts - whether in architecture, art or industrial design.

He developed a curriculum and founded the Bauhaus school in 1919 in Weimar. It moved to Dessau in 1925 and to Berlin in 1932. In 1933, Bauhaus was denounced as "degenerate" by the Nazis and shut down.

App to include other Bauhaus cities

According to Dornbusch, the app will be expanded in the future to include the other Bauhaus hubs, Dessau and Weimar.

Parallel to the app release on October 7, a Bauhaus event spanning all three cities - Berlin, Dessau and Weimar - will be taking place. The works of Walter Gropius are the focus on the event, called "Triennale der Moderne," which is to feature open houses in numerous Bauhaus buildings, along with lectures and tours.

kbm/eg (with dpa)