The Gropius House is finally getting Bauhaus-worthy bathroom

Talk about a plumb job.

After a six-month international search, the Gropius House in Lincoln, Massachusetts has announced that it has selected a winning design for a new public toilet.

The house museum, the former family home of Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, has long been a pilgrimage site for architecture and history buffs alike. But the five-acre property doesn’t have a permanent outdoor restroom; instead, when nature calls, visitors have to rely on a plastic portable toilet.

‘For decades, we were using a porta-potty,’ says Vin Cipolla, president and CEO of Historic New England, the organisation that runs and maintains the Gropius House site. ‘Our visitor experience team estimates that over 3,500 people a year use the porta-potty. That's just crazy.’

Given the historical significance of the 1938 modernist residence, Cipolla and his team knew a standard-issue water closet would not do. So in November, Historic New England launched a blind architecture competition, calling on the design community to come up with a Bauhaus-worthy bathroom. ‘The brief was to create this important visitor amenity and at the same time respect the historic Gropius site,’ Cipolla adds.

In total, Historic New England received 280 submissions from 40 different countries. But one design, from Isabel Strauss, an assistant professor of architecture at Smith College in western Massachusetts, was the clear winner.

Strauss proposed a minimal geometric volume that would echo the silhouette and scale of an adjacent garage. Unlike the garage, however, the structure is clad in fieldstone and oriented towards the surrounding forest, minimising the building’s visual impact on the Gropius House site while connecting users to nature.

‘I entered this competition because of my pure love for the Gropius House,’ Strauss said in a statement. ‘My design starts with what is already here, rather than imposing a completely new aesthetic, and draws on vernacular materials and reinterprets them through a contemporary lens.'

Five designs advanced to the final round – including proposals from teams as far away as Poland and Iran. But Strauss’s won out. ‘It's so elegant, but at the same time, highly legible,’ Cipolla said. As the winner, Strauss will receive a $5,000 cash prize and her design will be the subject of an exhibition at the site.

According to Cipolla, Historic New England will now undertake feasibility studies and work with preservation entities to bring the design to reality.

‘We are so totally thrilled and over the moon about the whole thing. It really did exceed expectations,’ he says – proof that, when it comes to the aid of a Bauhaus icon, architecture stans are flush with ideas.