Walter Adolph Gropius was a German American architect and educator who, particularly as director of the Bauhaus (1919–28), exerted a major influence on the development of modern architecture. Gropius who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture. His works, many executed in collaboration with other architects, included the school building and faculty housing at the Bauhaus (1925–26), the Harvard University Graduate Centre and the United States Embassy in Athens.

Beginning in 1903 Gropius followed in his architect father’s footsteps. After a year of travel in Europe, Gropius joined the architectural firm of Peter Behrens in 1908.