Gropius Residence, Lincoln, Massachusetts, 1938 c. 1938

Curator: This is Paul Davis' photograph of the Gropius Residence in Lincoln, Massachusetts, taken in 1938. Editor: It strikes me as incredibly austere. The angles are so sharp, the composition so... deliberate. Curator: Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus, sought to create functional and egalitarian designs. This house was a statement. Editor: It does feel like a statement. I wonder, though, how that kind of stark modernism translates into lived experience, into home. What was sacrificed in the name of progress? Curator: The house was a deliberate attempt to introduce European modernism to the United States, a very political and social act at the time. Editor: Right, it challenges traditional American domestic architecture, and traditional ideas of what a home should look like. Curator: Looking at it now, it embodies the post-war sense of optimism and a break from the past. Editor: Still, I can't shake the feeling that something is missing. A sense of warmth, maybe? Curator: Perhaps. It definitely prompts us to consider the complex interplay of art, architecture, and social ideology. Editor: Precisely. It urges us to think critically about what we value in a space.