Introduction

           Black Mountain College appeared in 1933 as a sudden reaction to the mainstream conservatism of undergraduate institutions in the United States. With an academic curriculum inspired by the Bauhaus program and a faculty constituted of Bauhaus refugees, it seems fitting that Black Mountain College selected Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer - then partnered in Cambridge, Massachusetts - to design the College’s first true campusin Lake Eden, North Carolina. The Gropius-Breuer schematic design for Lake Eden, a radical architectural vision for 1939, represents an improved Bauhaus on an unprecedented scale. Had it been constructed, the Lake Eden campus might have altered the trajectory of regional - and perhaps national - architecture. However, Black Mountain College’s radical philosophy of deinstitutionalization and its reputation as a hotbed for radicalism, coupled with the United States’ involvement in World War II, led to the abandonment of the Gropius-Breuer design and a Bauhaus vision for Lake Eden.

           Black Mountain College: Conception and Philosophy

           With nine teachers and nineteen students, Black Mountain College opened in September 1933 in Asheville, North Carolina. In April 1933, John Andrew Rice, Black Mountain College’s founder and a professor of Classics, was ousted from Rollins College (incidentally, in the same month Hitler’s Storm Troopers closed and ransacked the Dessau Bauhaus).[1] Hamilton Holt, the president of Rollins College, had requested Rice’s resignation due to his open criticism of specific members of the community and his opposition to traditional collegiate institutions like Greek societies and mandatory chapel services.[2] Though Rice later won an appeal to the American Association of University Professors, he decided to move to North Carolina, "the most liberal state in the South," to establish his ideal educational institution.[3] Controversy followed Rice to Black Mountain College. After an affair with a student, public fights with his wife, and outspoken criticism of community members, he resigned from Black Mountain College’s Board of Fellows in October 1939[4] and then from the Faculty in February 1940.[5]

           Black Mountain College was a radical, experimental college where co-dependence and a democratic spirit governed all aspects of life. The College offered a coeducational environment that facilitated - and expected - experimentation, self-direction, and participation by students as well as faculty. The distinction between curricular and extracurricular dissolved and community members contributed to the College’s work programs and its general upkeep. Most radically, the College attempted complete deinstitutionalization and rejected a traditional administrative hierarchy. With neither a board of trustees nor deans, the Faculty of Black Mountain College owned the College’s assets and performed its administrative duties.[6] To resolve community issues, the College held regular Meetings of the Faculty and Meetings of the Board of Fellows where students, faculty, and elected advisors participated in the College’s academic and administrative affairs. In fact, Walter Gropius later remarked that the College’s fluid structure provided, "a delightful spirit of co-operation of the faculty and student body… the whole college was our client."[7]

           The arts were Black Mountain College’s defining legacy. Much like Walter Gropius’ Bauhaus program (a curriculum of drawing, crafts, academic theory, theatre, music and dance),[8] the arts played a central role in Black Mountain College’s academic curriculum. The College organized its students into junior and senior divisions of self-directed study that functioned much like the Bauhaus’ hierarchy of apprentices, journeymen, and junior masters.[9] Throughout its existence, Black Mountain College was conscious of the German Bauhaus’ legacy and maintained ties with several refugee Bauhaus masters. The College hired Josef Albers as a professor of the arts immediately after the Dessau Bauhaus closed and later hired Anni Albers, who taught a weaving workshop, and Xanti Schawinsky, who taught drawing, painting, and typography. Together, the three indoctrinated Black Mountain College’s arts curriculum with the Bauhaus’ general course. Schawinsky even gave open lectures on Bauhaus architecture and design when the College began to consider architects for the Lake Eden campus.[10]

           For the first eight years after its inception, Black Mountain College rented 1,619 acres, located eighteen miles east of Asheville, from the Blue Ridge Assembly.[11] The Blue Ridge Campus boasted Robert E. Lee Hall, an antebellum, plantation-style structure that housed the College’s initial community. While the neoclassical, antebellum style was not representative of the College’s rebellious spirit, Robert E. Lee Hall maintained a strong and lively community due to its close quarters, grand lobby, and central stone fireplace. If the Blue Ridge Campus had been for sale, Black Mountain College would have purchased the property and remained there indefinitely. Instead, the College rented the Blue Ridge Campus on a short-lease (which required them to vacate every summer) and purchased the Lake Eden property in 1937 to maintain a sense of permanence.[12]

           Black Mountain College received mixed reviews. The educational elite generally admired the College, recognizing it as a bold concept without "any specific movement to sponsor or support it."[13] However, they commonly acknowledged that the College lacked external support and a campus of its own, and therefore questioned its longevity.[14] Public and local reception was less tolerant and focused instead on the College’s rebellious roots. In October 1937, the Raleigh News and Observer published a two-page spread titled "‘You are the Curriculum You Make’, Unusual College Head Tells Unusual Student Body: Born of Academic Rebellion, Black Mountain College thrives under direction of man who prefers title of Rector to that of President." The article exposes the controversial circumstances that led to Rice’s removal from Rollins College and then describes the "unusual" nature of Black Mountain College and its curriculum.[15] The article also mentions Rice’s indebtedness to Walter Gropius’ German Bauhaus and the refugee Bauhaus masters, Josef and Anni Albers and Xanti Schwinsky. Ultimately, the unconventional origins of Black Mountain College as an experimental community, coupled with the number of Jews and German refugees affiliated with its Faculty, raised public suspicions of the College as a threatening local, "hotbed of radicalism".[16]

           By October 1936, and before any formal discussion of architectural expansion, an article in Harper’s Magazine reported that the College had outgrown Robert E. Lee Hall. The author, Louis Adamic, reported that, "accommodations [existed] for only 60 students… and the many improvements which [had] been made [were] not suitable for permanent use".[17] Adamic also estimates a humble and necessary building program that predicts the financial burden of architectural expansion: increased dormitories ($42,000), increased study space ($40,000), library and art exhibition hall ($18,000), faculty quarters ($16,500), theatre music hall ($50,000), and a science and office wing ($32,500). [18] At approximately $200,000 (equivalent to $3,053,136 today),[19] Adamic’s estimation was far beyond the financial and administrative means of Black Mountain College.

           Born out of contention with the establishment, the ideology that directed Black Mountain College was difficult to constrain in a concrete, architectural gesture. Unfortunately, a striving school wishing to be taken seriously must be composed of concrete buildings with a campus of its own. For Black Mountain College, even the most radical architecture would compromise its guiding philosophy as a small and secluded, deinstitutionalized community. On August 16, 1938, the Christian Science Monitor reported on the College’s initial discussions of expansion:

           [Black Mountain College] is growing slowly and cautiously… it will be time to stop growing when it becomes apparent that there is a need for some college executives or administrators who have no time to teach. Then it will be said to new faculty and student applicants, ‘go over on the other side of the mountain and start a college of your own’. [20]

           John Andrew Rice had designed his ideal community, Black Mountain College, to survive without any internal administration or external support. However, in order to raise the necessary - and modest - $200,000 for Louis Adamic’s hypothetical expansion proposal, Black Mountain College would have to compromise its principal philosophy and look to outside sources for help.

           The Gropius-Breuer Commission for a Lake Eden Campus

           In June 1937, Black Mountain College purchased the Lake Eden property, 667 acres located east of Asheville and north of Black Mountain. A girls’ summer camp had developed the property between 1923 and 1924, constructing an artificially damned lake, a granite deposit, productive farmland, and sixteen buildings of rustic design (two large guesthouses, a pavilion overlooking the lake, and several cottages).[21] The structures at Lake Eden were not suitable to house Black Mountain College’s entire community and the College did not have enough money to erect additional buildings. Therefore, the College remained in Robert E. Lee Hall and the Faculty decided to operate Lake Eden as a hotel during the summer of 1937 and as a home for the Faculty during the summers of 1938, 1939, and 1940 (when they had to leave the Blue Ridge Campus).[22] However, constant leasing negotiations with Willis Weatherford, the Blue Ridge Campus landowner, prompted the Faculty to consider architectural plans for a year-round Lake Eden Campus.[23]

           As a professor of the arts, Josef Albers played an influential role in the architectural selection for the Lake Eden campus. In December 1936, Albers, who had just arrived in the United States from Germany, gave three lectures at the Graduate School of Design of Harvard University.[24] At the same time, Joseph Hudmet, the Dean of the Graduate School of Design was recruiting Walter Gropius to Harvard’s faculty. Hudmet regarded Gropius’ Dessau Bauhaus as an icon and an inspiration for the future of American architecture.[25] By December 1938, Walter Gropius was appointed Chairman of the Department of Architecture at the Graduate School of Design and, under Albers’ request, made his first visit to Black Mountain College. [26]

           On January 23, 1939, Black Mountain College’s Board of Fellows unanimously elected to allocate $1,000 for "the purpose of securing preliminary plans by a competent architect for a suitable building to house the college at Lake Eden".[27] Within a week, the College had commissioned Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer - with an office in Cambridge, Massachusetts - to design structures for the Lake Eden Campus. The project was one of Gropius and Breuer’s earliest commissions in the United States.

           The first public announcement of Gropius and Breuer’s involvement with Lake Eden appeared in the March 1939 issue of the Black Mountain College Newsletter. The newsletter champions Gropius’ experimental Bauhaus architecture and states that the College, which had outgrown Robert E. Lee Hall, would construct a campus "in units, the first to consist of an assembly hall, library, and student and faculty studies… other units will be added later."[28] From April 5 to April 7, 1939, Marcel Breuer visited the Lake Eden Campus. He submitted a written report on May 11 that describes his impressions of the site and proposes three stages of construction to reduce cost.[29] Gropius and Breuer completed their final schematic designs in September 1939 for a price of $939.50.[30] On September 19, Gropius mailed his own report - with the final plans enclosed - indicating that he had slightly amended Joseph Albers’ earlier scheme.[31] Gropius visited the campus in December to speak with the College’s newly appointed committee overseeing the Lake Eden Campus planning.[32]

           The Gropius-Breuer Schematic Design for Lake Eden



            Gropius and Breuer’s design for the Lake Eden campus would give visual evidence of the community’s pioneering spirit and reflect the College’s communal and co-dependent philosophy. Chief among Gropius and Breuer’s concerns was that the Lake Eden campus should function as a self-sufficient complex of structures, a string of buildings situated along the south-west shoreline of Lake Eden and connected by glassed walkways. To meet financial obligations, the College would raise donations and would construct each building unit independently, starting with building A. While constructing the remaining buildings, the College would inhabit the Lake Eden’s existing cottages to fulfill its immediate needs. In all, the design would accommodate approximately 250 students and would provide approximately 140,000 square feet of space.[33]

           Gropius and Breuer’s vision for Black Mountain College evolved from the confluence of two architectural concepts: Breuer’s "Garden City of the Future," a conceptual model he designed in 1936, and Gropius’ Dessau Bauhaus, the icon of modern construction and education completed in 1926. The two concepts serve as models for the Lake Eden Campus and demonstrate Gropius and Breuer’s combined experience as a fledgling architectural practice in the United States.

           Breuer designed the "Garden City of the Future" in 1936 while partnered with F. R. S. Yorke in London.[34] The model suggested a utopian, modern solution for the revival of a city center. The conceptual project embodied Breuer’s experience in urban planning and housing, preparing him for large, urban commissions that necessitated an understanding of plastic, concrete forms. Breuer’s Y-shaped residences exhibited in the "Garden City of the Future" demonstrate his belief in standardized housing schemes realized by the possibilities of reinforced concrete. He employed several of these standardized forms in the Lake Eden design as dormitory and classroom buildings. Breuer’s conceptual "Garden City of the Future" also exhibits a trapezoidal auditorium that projects out from its stage, forming a spacious, windowed lobby with a view of the surrounding landscape. Breuer had attempted this trapezoidal design several times before the auditorium at Black Mountain College with the Ukrainian State Theatre (an unbuilt competition submission, 1930-31)[35] and the College of William and Mary Festival Theatre and Fine Arts Center (an unbuilt competition submission, 1938-39).[36] Breuer applied his previous experiments with standardized residences and trapezoidal auditoriums in his plans for Lake Eden. However, he had never experimented with the two in such an immediate relationship: in direct rapport along the Lake Eden shoreline.

           The Lake Eden plans also share many similarities with Gropius’ Dessau Bauhaus, completed in 1926. Chief among these is the idea that the structure should demonstrate the technical cutting-edge in modern construction. The Lake Eden design’s innovative use of glass skins, reinforced concrete, piloti, and flat roofs demonstrate a Bauhaus approach to materiality and allow for small building footprints, green spaces, and ample sunlight - all championed in Gropius’ manifesto for modern architecture.[37] Gropius also believed that the College’s radical philosophy should dictate the building’s form and style. He once stated,

"We tried to avoid making a straightjacket for the school life as so many buildings unfortunately do, on account of a wrong conception of tradition…true tradition is building up on achievements of former periods as far as they are still alive, but without imitating these periods."[38]

           Much like the Dessau Bauhaus, the design for Lake Eden communicates the radical modern philosophy of its inhabitants, which was stifled in the traditional, neoclassical structure of Robert E. Lee Hall.

           In many ways, The Gropius-Breuer design breaks with the model of the Dessau Bauhaus. Most obviously, the Lake Eden design untangles the pinwheel of the Dessau Bauhaus and places the building units, with the dormitories to the east and an auditorium to the west, in a line along the shoreline. By engaging the structure with the edge of Lake Eden, the Gropius-Breuer design responds and interacts with its site. The Lake Eden design leverages materiality, footprint, and cantilever to enhance its stature on the site and allow for sunlight, views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and interstitial green spaces. With an unprecedented 140,000 square feet of functional space (compared to the Dessau Bauhaus’ 28,309 square feet)[39] spread across six buildings, the Lake Eden plans envisioned a proliferation of Black Mountain College’s, Bauhaus-inspired curriculum. Additionally, the inclusion of a science wing in such close proximity to the arts buildings suggests an interdisciplinary spirit and an amendment to the Bauhaus program to appeal and compete with local liberal arts institutions. Finally, while the Dessau Bauhaus placed students and faculty in separate living quarters, (with the masters living in separate cottages) the Lake Eden design achieves the complete integration of faculty and students in the same dormitory space.

           The Lake Eden complex is comprised of four distinct systems connected by covered walkways: the dormitories (building A), the lobby (buildings B and C), the auditorium (building E), and the science and music wings (buildings D and F). The complex lines the south shore of Lake Eden with residential buildings to the east and academic buildings to the west. Each building is rotated eighteen degrees relative to its neighbor to permit unobstructed views across Lake Eden towards the north and to allow for optimal sunlight from the south. Five primary materials exemplify the complex’s modern construction: white stucco, reinforced concrete, steel, glass, and local a granite (quarried from a deposit on site). Characteristic of Breuer’s work in the United States, the use of local stone lends the buildings a sense of belonging to the Lake Eden site (the rustic stone design of the existing cottages further enhances the allusion of harmony).

           The first phase of Gropius-Breuer’s Lake Eden plan would have been building A, the dormitories. The dormitory building is a massive, five-story structure that houses approximately 150 students, serving as a self-sufficient living unit for the College, replacing all of the facilities of Robert E. Lee hall. The building is elevated on piloti and cantilevered over the water (with a footprint of only 862 square feet) to allow interstitial green space and to provide visitors an unobstructed view of Lake Eden as they approach the complex from the south. The dormitory building achieves the complete integration of the College’s community. With the exception of a secondary faculty entry, the students and faculty share the same residential halls and study space. The dormitory building also features a multi-functional flat roof with a sundeck, a garden, and a game room. In all, building A offers 9,000 square feet of classroom space and 44,000 square feet of dormitory space.


           Buildings B and C serve as the fulcrum point and central gathering space of the Gropius-Breuer design. It consists of the lobby (building C), constructed primarily of local granite, and a dormitory structure (building B), elevated above the lobby on a grid of piloti (the two are connected by an exterior stairwell). Together, buildings B and C would have created the second phase of the construction project. Building C is one of two multi-use spaces on the campus and includes a sub-grade parking garage and 10,000 square feet of lobby space.



Its north-south axis runs perpendicular to the shoreline and sets the building in direct relation with building E, the auditorium. A grand fireplace of local granite dominates the lobby’s central gathering space, alluding to the fireplace at Robert E. Lee Hall where students and faculty would gather at community forums.



At the north end of the lobby, a mezzanine of general meeting rooms, enclosed by a large parabolic window, overlooks Lake Eden and the surrounding mountains. Gropius and Breuer ensured that every space of the lobby was functional and even designed the flat roof to function as a sun deck with a system of screens that shield sunbathers from the wind. The dormitories above the lobby, building B, houses 104 students in 18,300 square feet of space. In all the total size of buildings B and C is approximately 40,000 square feet.



The third phase of the Gropius-Breuer building campaign would have been building E, the auditorium, which consists of an auditorium and a cafeteria space independent from the main college complex. The building’s trapezoidal structure cantilevers over Lake Eden with a monumental, east-facing glass fa?ade providing a view of the entire of the complex framed against the Blue Ridge Mountains.


Composed of massive slabs of local granite and white stucco, building E is the icon of the Gropius-Breuer design and the heart of the College’s arts curriculum. With two stages for performance, a stage shop, dressing rooms, and storage, the auditorium space seats approximately 200 people.





The cafeteria, which seats 250 people, places student seating among faculty, and serves as the social heart of the entire design. The auditorium can expand into the cafeteria to create a single flexible space that increases the auditorium’s capacity to approximately 450 people. This adaptable design resembles Gropius’ Dessau Bauhaus auditorium, which also expanded into a cafeteria. In all, the structure provides 10,420 square feet of auditorium space and 7,925 square feet of cafeteria space. The total size of the building E is approximately 22,500 square feet.



The final phase, or "build-out" of the Gropius-Breuer design was to be the science wing, building D, and the music building, building F. They are relatively simple, two-story structures that add approximately 4,000 square feet of classroom space each. However, the physics and science laboratories demonstrate that Black Mountain College was interested in adapting its Bauhaus-inspired curriculum to compete with an American, liberal arts education. Additionally, the inclusion of the natural sciences in close proximity to arts buildings suggests an interdisciplinary vision at Black Mountain College. While the Gropius-Breuer designs reflect the self-sustaining, communal, and interdisciplinary aspirations of Black Mountain College, the design ignored the College’s financial and administrative structures. In 1939, Theodore Dreier, the Treasurer of Black Mountain College estimated the entire plan at $500,000 (equaling approximately $7,632,840, with inflation, today).[40]



Considering the increase of construction fees over the past 70 years, the entire complex would cost approximately $22,120,000 today.[41] To initiate such an enormous construction project, Black Mountain College would have to find extensive external support.

           The Abandonment of Gropius-Breuer’s Vision

           By the time Gropius and Breuer completed their designs, Black Mountain College was unprepared to initiate an expansive building campaign. With total assets of $45,953 and working capital of only $11,513,[42] the College did not have enough money to break ground on the $75,000 main building.

           In January 1940, Black Mountain College commissioned a model of the Gropius-Breuer plans for a fundraising campaign at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. On January 8 and 9, 1940,[43] Josef Albers, Walter Gropius, and Marcel Breuer spoke about the College’s educational ideals and presented their design for Lake Eden to raise the $500,000 for the entire commission. The New York Herald Tribune published an article titled "Gropius Finds a College Run by Teamwork," which commented on Black Mountain College’s co-educational, communal, and isolationist philosophy.[44] An image of Gropius and Breuer with their model appears to the right of the headline and the article briefly mentions their Lake Eden design. The paper describes the Gropius-Breuer design as "a series of elongated, glass-sided houses, joined together and raised on stilts," a statement that suggests a general unfamiliarity with modern construction techniques.[45] The public seemed uninterested in architecture and focused instead on the College’s unusual curriculum. Unfortunately, the College only raised $14,480 of $75,000 required to break ground on the first phase of the Lake Eden project.[46] On February 13, 1940, after the failure at the Museum of Modern Art, the College tentatively adopted a plan to operate Lake Eden as an inn for summer 1940 - the Faculty confirmed the proposal in May 1940.[47]

           The failure of the first New York fundraising campaign was likely due to the College’s reputation as a radical, deinstitutionalized community. Gropius and Breuer’s proposal of a 250-student increase would have necessitated a shift in the College’s philosophy, forcing Black Mountain College to adopt an administrative structure, thereby undermining the mission of the school.[48] Additionally, donors might have remained hesitant about a college that could not secure accreditation, had no assurance of longevity, and rejected the administrative oversight of a board of trustees.

           In April 1940, Willis Weatherford, the landlord of the Blue Ridge Campus, notified the College that they must vacate the Robert E. Lee Hall facilities by June 1941.[49] The College decided to make every effort to prepare Lake Eden for immediate occupancy. On May 16, 1940, President Theodore Roosevelt asked Congress for over a billion dollars to develop the defenses of the United States. The United States’ involvement in World War II brought with it a wartime economy, making fundraising more difficult and building materials - especially steel and reinforced concrete - restricted.[50] Since steel and reinforced concrete comprised the innovative structural core of the Gropius-Breuer design, President Roosevelt’s wartime restrictions would have delayed and increased the cost of construction.

           The College held a second fundraising campaign at the Museum of Modern Art on June 12 1940, yet it failed to produce any sizable donations. After this second unsuccessful fundraising attempt and the realization that the College must move to Lake Eden in less than a year (by Willis Weatherford’s order), the College asked Marcel Breuer to design a simpler version of the Lake Eden plans that did not require the restricted materials - it was not possible.[51] At the June 20 Special Meeting of the Board of Fellows, the Board also discussed the possibility of encouraging faculty to build their own homes at Lake Eden. Ultimately, the Board of Fellows decided to abandon the Gropius-Breuer plans and find another approach. They appointed the Treasurer of Black Mountain College, Theodore Dreier, to secure an architect for "such buildings as may be required".[52] Though they terminated the Gropius-Breuer commission, Black Mountain College preserved its relationship with Gropius and Breuer. On April 22, 1940, the Board of Fellows appointed Walter Gropius to the Advisory Council of Black Mountain College,[53] and on May 18, 1940, the Faculty appointed Marcel Breuer as an outside investigator of the College’s graduates in the arts.[54]

           In July 1940, the College invited Lawrence Kocher to Lake Eden and commissioned him to design simpler, wood-framed structures that the community could erect using student and faculty labor.[55] Kocher completed his design by the end of the summer.[56] Kocher’s willingness to join the faculty as professor of architecture may have ensured him the commission.[57] Nevertheless, his design allowed Black Mountain College to borrow small sums of money to complete the first phase of the project.[58] The Kocher plans also offered a communal approach to construction. Instead of relying on highly skilled labor (required for the Gropius-Breuer plans), Kocher hired unskilled architectural students to assemble his simple wood frame. [59] Kocher’s plans were even more tempting when Theodore Dreier suggested that the College construct the building using salvaged materials from the New York World’s Fair.[60]

           In September, 1940, the Board of Fellows appointed Lawrence Kocher as a visiting professor in architecture for 1940-1941.[61] By November 1940, he had begun construction on a single studies building at Lake Eden[62] Black Mountain College relocated to Kocher’s first building on May 8, 1941. After its completion, Kocher appraised the structure at $62,000 but because the College employed unskilled students, the materials and labor only cost the College $28,000.[63]

           Epilogue

           From May 1941 to March 1957 (when Black Mountain College dissolved) the College struggled to complete Lawrence Kocher’s plans. In fact, they only ever managed to erect the single studies building that Kocher had finished in 1941. Today, Camp Rockmont, an all-boys, Christian summer camp, owns the Lake Eden property and Kocher’s single, lone structure stands in disrepair as a fading indication of what might have been.

           Barring the financial and philosophical setbacks of Black Mountain College, had the Gropius-Breuer plans been constructed, the Lake Eden campus might have altered the trajectory of local - and perhaps national - architecture. With the shared vision and combined experience of Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, Black Mountain College’s architectural image might have become the paradigm for experimental and interdisciplinary institutions across North Carolina and the United States.

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