As our second experiment in prefab
housing, we feature the work of Walter Gropius. Well known for his efforts in
founding the German Bauhaus, he immigrated to the US and influenced a generation
of young American architects and their positions on mass housing. «The Expansible
House» was designed from his collaboration with Konrad Wachsmann another
modernist architect brought to the U.S. by the difficulties on the European continent
at the time. This collaboration was founded on the mutual belief that better
housing was needed to house post-war America. They founded, along with a number
of investors, The General Panel Corporation in 1946 for their modular building
system known as The Packaged House.
The General Panel Corporation was
founded in New York and eventually moved to Burbank California, and Gropius’ work on mass housing helped
influence investors for its construction. The company was to make use of
aircraft and military technology to produce thousands of homes per year. The
company only ended up outputting a few hundred houses, and was never able to
compete with the housing moguls like William J. Levitt who produced thousands of
low-cost homes form standardized components.
The collaboration between the two
architects, although not a commercial success, allows us to enter into Gropius’
vision for the future of mass housing. Based on the ideas of flexibility,
adaptability, and customization, his vision was more in tune with contemporary
needs. His vision perhaps even foreshadowed N.J. Habraken’s work on mass
housing and the invention of open systems (see Supports: an
Alternative to Mass Housing).
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| The Expansible House by Walter Gropius |
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