From Bauhaus to

Ecohouse: A Short
History of Ecological
Design 1

Peder Anker

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From Bauhaus to Ecohouse

The Sun House, by Maxwell Fry, London, 1935, is an an early example of sun responsive architecture.
Fry collaborated closely with Walter Gropius. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, User: Justinc

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 In 1937 the ecologist Julian Huxley hosted a sumptuous
farewell dinner party for Walter Gropius upon the occasion
of his departure from London to become Chair of the
Harvard School of Design. The guest list reads as a Who-is-
Who of the English scene of modernist design, but on it are
also prominent ecologists, which raises the question of why
they were invited to the festivity.

What brought Bauhaus designers and ecolo- secretary of the Zoological Society he enjoyed
gists together was a shared belief that the a spacious residence at the London Zoo, which
human household should be modelled after the he had made into a showroom for modernist
household of nature. This fusion of biological design. Here scientists, architects, urban plan-
reasoning with Bauhaus design took place ners, as well as the environmentalist circle
when the school’s faculty between 1934 and around Williams-Ellis met for discussions.
1937 tried to re-establish the school in London Their basic idea was that old-fashioned hous-
after fleeing from Nazi harassment. ing design reinforced an unfortunate dualism

From Bauhaus to Ecohouse

The Bauhaus faculty moved into a brand between humans and nature, while the new
new apartment complex, the Lawn Road Flats, Bauhaus design promised a reunion of humans
which was the first modernist residence in with nature through healthy living.
London. The list of carefully selected tenants The London Zoo became the testing ground
included a host of intellectuals and designers for these architectural ideas. According to one
enjoying what became a social hub for design. of the zoo keepers, Solly Zuckerman, the differ-
As the building’s architect, Wells Coates was in ence between humans and animals was
the midst of gatherings that soon evolved into “almost certainly one of degree only,” and one
the Modern Architecture Research Group or could consequently see the life of primates as
MARS. This group included notable designers “a crude picture of a social level from which
such as Maxwell Fry (who collaborated with emerged our earliest human ancestors.” 3 Visitors
Gropius on several projects), Morton Shand, at the Zoo would observe their own primitive
and John Gloag. desires in animals, he believed, and it was thus
One of the chief points of debate was the of moral importance to place them in a model
role of ecology in reshaping society. The MARS home for healthy living. The famous gorilla
group became advocates of environmental sen- house and the penguin pool, along with a series
sitivity: “There must be no antagonism between of other buildings, were therefore built in the
architecture and its natural setting,” they modernist style designed by Berthold Lubetkin.
pointed out in an exhibition manifesto of 1938. The London writings of the Bauhausler
A drawing of a tree growing through a building Làszlò Moholy-Nagy may illustrate similar con-
was to illustrate that “the architecture of the cerns. He and Gropius had previously compiled
house embraces the garden. House and gar- a series of books about Bauhaus, in which his
den coalesce, a single unit in the landscape.”2 own Von Material zu Arkitektur appeared in the
This appeal reflected values and ideas pro- English language under the title The New Vision
moted by ecologists such as Clough Williams- in 1930. For many English speaking designers
Ellis, who thought modernist design could save it became their first encounter with Bauhaus
Britain from environmental destruction. research methods. He advised them to use
As a trained ecologist, Huxley took equal “nature as a constructional model” and always
interest in the environment cause. As the look for ‘prototypes in nature’ to determine

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 “old-fashioned housing design
reinforced an unfortunate
dualism between humans and
nature, while the new Bauhaus
design promised a reunion
of humans with nature through
healthy living”
Walter Groupius

Bauhaus design will determine “the fate of our

generation and the next” if it successfully uses
the biological forces of life to improve social,
economic, technical and hygienic matters so
that society would live in harmony with nature.8
After moving to Harvard, Gropius would
From Bauhaus to Ecohouse

warn against industrialism and capitalistic

The Lawn Roads Flats (Isokon Building), by Wells
greed that could come to dominate human life
Coates, 1933/34 was a hub to intellectuals and unless architects approached design and the
designers. It was built as an experiment in communal environment in a responsible way. Urban
living. Photo: Wikimedia Commons (justinc) environmental renewal was valuable in itself,
but should, according to Gropius, also be seen
functionality.4 “Functionalism” was a key word in view of trying to save non-urban nature
in the book. Late in life Moholy-Nagy would from suburban sprawl. By making cities livable
complain that the original meaning of Louis one could protect their surrounding nature
Sullivan’s motto form follows function had been and the larger habitat from further development.
“blurred” to a “cheap commercial slogan” so This, at least, was what he told his students
that its original meaning was lost. According to at Harvard in the early 1950s:
Moholy-Nagy, it should be understood in view
of “phenomena occurring in nature” where “[...] the greatest responsibility of the plan-
every form emerge from its proper function.5 ner and architect, I believe, is the protection
This was also the basic assumption in The New and development of our habitat. Man has
Vision: Humans were governed by their biologi- evolved a mutual relationship with nature on
cal nature and cultural artefacts would conse- earth, but his power to change its surface
quently only be functional if they confirmed has grown so tremendously that this may
to human biology. “Technical progress should become a curse instead of a blessing. How
never be the goal, but instead the means” for can we afford to have one beautiful tract of
a healthy biological life, he argued.6 open country after the other bulldozed out
Gropius expressed a similar sentiment at of existence, flattened and emptied for the
his first lecture in London. “[T]he thesis on sake of smooth building operations and
which the Bauhaus was built” is “that art and then filled up by a developer with hundreds
architecture which fail to serve for the better- of insipid little house units, that will never
ment of our environment are socially destruc- grow into a community. [...] Until we love
tive by aggravating instead of healing the ills and respect the land almost religiously, its
of an inequitable social system.” 7 fatal deterioration will go on.” 9

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 From Bauhaus to Ecohouse
Technology, terminology and methodology developed for outer space became tools for designing
with nature on the ground. Envisioned Solar Power Sattelite. Image: NASA

One of his students was Ian McHarg, whose them as a model for how humans should live
Design with Nature (1969) became a phenome- in harmony with nature on Earth. To him, these
nal success and came to define the field of ecologically construed spaceships and settle-
landscape design for a whole generation. As ments came to represent the rational, orderly,
strange as it may sound, in this book McHarg and wisely managed in contrast to the irrational,
advised his readers to adopt the life and per- disorderly, and ill managed environments on
spective of an astronaut in trying to design with the Spaceship Earth. Consequently, technology,
nature on the ground. “We can use the astro- terminology, and methodology developed for
naut as our instructor,” he argued, as he (they outer space became his tools for designing with
were all men at the time) saw the Earth from nature on the ground. Environmental ethics
above allowing a managerial overview of the became in his subsequent writings often an
landscape.10 McHarg was inspired by the astro- issue of trying to live like astronauts by adapt-
nautic sciences which since the late 1950s ing space technologies such as bio-toilets,
were working towards sending humans into solar cells, recycling, and energy-saving devices,
outer space. The chief method was to try to along with a utilitarian philosophy.
build spaceships in which not only water and air McHarg was not the only environmental
but also food would circulate within what was designer enthused by the life of the astronaut
called ‘space ecological systems’.11 The NASA and the managerial view from without. “We are
organization would pour considerable amount all astronauts,” Richard Buckminster Fuller
of resources into researching how to build explained in his famous book Operating Manual
closed ecological systems in outer space in for Spaceship Earth (1969), which basically
which humans could settle. postulates using space ecological engineering
McHarg found these unworldly ecosystems manuals for astronauts to solve environmental
for astronauts in outer space inspiring. He saw problems on Earth.12

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 From Bauhaus to Ecohouse

136
 “art and architecture which fail surrounding social and natural environment as
irrelevant. Just like a spaceship was detached
to serve for the betterment from the surrounding environment in outer
of our environment are socially space, a building designed as a self-sustained
destructive by aggravating microcosm was, at least in theory, to be
detached from the Earth. As a consequence,
instead of healing the ills of an some of these ecological buildings tended
inequitable social system” to resemble spaceships by incorporating
closed ecosystems, space technologies such
Walter Groupius as solar cells, and by often being isolated from
the local realities, cultures, and landscapes
they are supposed to protect.
A telling image of what ecological architec-
ture came to be in the late 1970s was the
attempt in 1976 by architectural students at the
 →  previous page
Biosphere 2 from inside
University of Minnesota to build their own
  self-­sustaining ecological building with various
 ←  Biosphere 2 is an Earth systems science research recirculation devices. They named it “‘Ouroboros’
facility, the largest closed system ever created. Built from after a mythical dragon which survived by eat-
1987 – 1991, in a structure with five areas based on
ing its own tail and feces.” 13 In this way ecologi-

From Bauhaus to Ecohouse

biomes, an agricultural area and living and working space
to study interactions between humans, farming and cal architecture in general also became a way
technology with the rest of nature. All photos: Kevin Kelly of designing which fed on its own ideas and
gradually closed itself off from developments in
the rest of the architectural community. The
With the slump in the space industry in the outside world was simply described as “indus-
early 1970s, key movers of its technology trial” and thus not worth listening to. As a
began marketing space technological know- consequence, many environmentally concerned
how to the architectural community. The result designers fashioned themselves as ‘design
was a surge in ecological remedies such as outlaws’ on the margin of the mainstream.14
new waste disposal systems inspired by space This somewhat narrow focus on circulation
recirculation technology, a sewage system of energy and efficiency of buildings came
inspired by the astronaut’s toilet, solar cell pan- at the expense of a wider cultural, aesthetic and
els, and an energy efficiency system for homes social understanding of architecture and the
that became known as ‘autonomous’ buildings. human condition. As William McDonough and
Key ‘autonomous’ designers include early Michael Braungart, two recent environmental
British ecological architects such as Alexander architects, have noted about previous eco­
Pike and John Frazer, and their students such logically construed buildings, “[...] efficiency
as Kenneth Yeang and Brenda Vale. Similar isn’t much fun. In a world dominated by
projects came along under names such as efficiency, each development would serve only
‘bio-shelter’ and ‘integral house’ in the US by narrow and practical purposes. Beauty, creativity,
Sean Wellesley-Miller and Day Chahroudi, fantasy, enjoyment, inspiration, and poetry
the co-directors of the Solar Energy Laboratory would fall by the wayside, creating an unap-
at MIT, Phil Hawes’ Biosphere 2, and perhaps pealing world indeed.”15
most prominently John and Nancy Todd and With the end of the Cold War, most environ-
the so-called New Alchemists at Cape Cod. mental designers broke out of the intellectual
These designers have in common the fact capsule ecological space engineering had
that the buildings they designed were detached created for them and abandoned outer space
from the environment they were meant to save. as a source of inspiration. Those architects
Paradoxically, they came to regard the concerned with environmentally friendly design

137
 focus their attention on the ways in which eco-
logical design could benefit the client finan-
cially as new innovative technologies could har-
monize the ecology and economy of a building.
Yet this somewhat narrow neo-liberalist
outlook hardly moved the larger design com-
munity into action in favor of the environment.
It was not until environmentally concerned
citizens and politicians more recently began
to demand a change in building techniques that
the larger architectural community began to
take an interest. One example is the rating
system for buildings set up by the United States
Green Building Council called ‘Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design’ (LEED),
which encouraged private and public property
developers to think anew about their relation-
ship to both society and nature. This forced
architects into action. They began to explore
a host of new environmentally friendly technol-
From Bauhaus to Ecohouse

ogies and building techniques spurred by

the purchasing power of ecologically minded
developers.
With major clients, contractors, new tech-
nologies, and know-how of a new generation of
young architects in place, trendsetting design-
ers also began to look with renewed interest
at ecological design methods. They brought
to the forefront the importance of the aesthetic
The zeroHouse, Specht Harpman Architects/Louise dimensions of ecological architecture, as in
Harpman, 2008, is a fully self sustained modular
house. Image: Specht Harpman
the work of, say, Bjarke Ingels, Francois Roche,
Louise Harpman, Mitchell Joachim, Rachel
Armstrong, Alex Haw, Magnus Larssen and many,
many others. Their aesthetic abilities brought
who did not endorse space ecology would an architectural movement from the margin to the
instead receive attention. One example was mainstream of current architectural journalism.
Richard Neutra, who thought using money for Yet for all their inventive powers, it is worth
space research was a waste.16 Others include noting that these efforts are not that different
Moshe Safdie, who developed environmentally from the Bauhaus design program of the late
sensitive and innovative architecture without 1930s. The attempt to base design on biological
reference to space ecology.17 Similarly, to avoid footing points back to the very core of the mod-
harming the landscape Malcolm Wells chose ernist heritage. Indeed, the program of trying
to build a ‘gentile architecture’ underground to unify art and science may serve as the very
which had little to do with space cabin design definition of the modernist architecture that
principles.18 As a substitute for space engi- traces its heritage back to the Bauhaus school.
neering, some designers turned their interest As Huxley once said about the school’s founder:
towards the perceived ecological wisdom of “[Gropius’] lifelong aim was to work for the
vernacular architecture and design. With the reunification of art and science, without which
fall of socialism, others would in the 1990s there can be no true culture.”19

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 Number 8, by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), Ørestaden, Copenhagen offers a mixed typology of live-work spaces,
and social housing. A 1,5 km green path runs along the building, and there is emphasis on shared facilities.
Photo: Ty Stange www.8-tallet.dk

From Bauhaus to Ecohouse

Peder Anker Notes 6. Moholy-Nagy, New Vision, 16. 13. Sam Love, “The
received his PhD in history Overconnected Society,”
of science from Harvard 1. This article is based on 7. László Moholy-Nagy, The Futurist, 8 (1976),
University in 1999. He is asso- my book From Bauhaus to “Introduction” to Walter Gropius, 293 – 295, quote on p. 294.
ciate professor at the Gallatin Ecohouse: A History of Rebuilding our Communities
School of Individualized Ecological Design, (Baton (Chicago: Paul Theobald, 14. Ed. Chris Zelov and Phil
Study and the Environmental Rouge: Louisiana State 1945), 11. Cousineau, Design Outlaws on
Studies Program at New York University Press, 2010). I am the Ecological Frontier (Easton,
University, with teaching grateful to Helle Benedicte 8. László Moholy-Nagy, PA: Knossus Pub., 1997).
and research interests in the Berg for editorial assistance. “The New Bauhaus and Space
history of science, ecology, Relationship,” American 15. William McDonough and
environmentalism and design. 2. Modern Architecture Architect and Architecture Michael Braungart, Cradle to
He is the author of From Research Group, 151 (Dec. 1937), 23 – 28, Cradle: Remaking the Way we
Bauhaus to Eco-House (2010), New Architecture (London: quote on p. 28. Make Things (New York,
which explores the intersection New Burlington Galleries, North Point Press, 2002), 65.
of architecture and ecological 1938), 20. 9. Walter Gropius, Scope of
science, and Imperial Ecology Total Architecture, (New York: 16. Richard Neutra, World and
(2001). Currently, Anker is Co- 3. Solly Zuckerman, Harper & Brothers, [1943] Dwelling (New York, Universe
Director of Global Design NYU, The Social Life of Monkeys 1955), 184. Gropius’ emphasis. Books, 1962), 26.
working on a forthcoming book, and Apes (New York:
Global Design (2014), with Hardcourt, 1932), 18, 315. 10. Ian L. McHarg, Design 17. Moshe Safdie, Beyond
Louise Harpman and Mitchell with Nature (Garden City, Habitat (Cambridge: The MIT
Joachim. 4. László Moholy-Nagy, NY: Doubleday, 1969), 95. Press, 1970).
The New Vision: From
Material to Architecture, trans. 11. Eugene B. Konecci, 18. Malcolm B. Wells,
Daphne M. Hoffman, “Space ecological systems,” Gentile Architecture (New York,
(New York: Brewster, Warren in Bioastronautics, edited by McGraw-Hill Book Comp., 1981).
and Putnam, 1930), 29. Karl E. Schaefer, (New York:
Macmillan, 1964), 274 – 304. 19. Julian Huxley, 1956,
5. László Moholy-Nagy, quoted in Reginald Isaacs,
“Design Potentials,” New 12. Richard Buckminster Gropius, (Boston: Little, Brown,
Architecture and City Planning Fuller, Operating Manual for 1991), 295.
ed. Paul Zucker, (New York: Spaceship Earth (Edwardsville:
Philosophical Library, 1944), Southern Illinois University
675 – 687, quote on p. 675. Press, 1969), 46.

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