Chapter III, The White Gods Summary and Analysis

In 1937, Gropius came to the United States to escape the Nazis. He would make his permanent home there, as did many of the other Bauhaus architects. When Gropius arrived, he was received like a god and his followers like saints. Gropius was appointed the head of Harvard's architecture school and Breuer joined him. Moholy-Nagy opened the New Bauhaus in Chicago, which became the Chicago Institute of Design. Other institutions were created as well. The Museum of Modern Art gave Gropius a show of his work and Philip Johnson, one of the authors of "The International Style," started from zero and learned from Gropius.

American architecture was revolutionized in three years. The Bauhausians system of instruction and their very presence were responsible for most of the change. The Colonial Complex was not confined to...