German architect and educator who had pivotal role in the modern movement.

He was born in Berlin, where his father was an architect. Studied architecture in Munich and Berlin from 1903 to 1907, and from 1908 to 1910 worked in the office of Peter Behrens, a pioneer of modern design. He joined the Deutsche Werkbund in 1910, and supported Henry van de Velde on the principle of the creative individual over standardization.

In 1911, along with Adolph Meyer, he designed the Faguswerk (Fagus factory), the first with exterior glass and steel "curtain walls." After serving in World War I, he became director of the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts, and there in 1919 established the Bauhaus, considered by many to be the first educational program of modern design. He designed new buildings for the Bauhaus in Dessau, where the school moved in 1926.

He resigned from the Bauhaus in 1928 and set up his own office in Berlin, where he designed Siemensstadt public housing in 1929 and became vice president of the Congrés International d'Architecture Modern (CIAM). He moved to London in 1934, working in partnership with Maxwell Fry (1936-1937).

He came to the US in 1937 to become a professor at the graduate school of design at Harvard, and worked in partnership with Marcel Breuer from 1938 to 1941. In 1939 he designed his own house in Lincoln, MA. In 1945 he founded The Architects Collaborative (TAC).

Gropius received the Kaufmann International Design Award in 1962 for achievement in design education.