Hannes Meyer

The Swiss architect and urbanist Hannes Meyer (1889-1954) is considered one of the most important representatives of New Building movement. Trained as a bricklayer and draftsman, he continued his education at the School of Arts and Crafts, the Agricultural Academy and the Technical University in Berlin and worked as an architect in Munich and Essen before founding his own architectural practice in Basel in 1919. In 1927 he was appointed head of the building department, and in 1928 he succeeded Walter Gropius as director of the Bauhaus in Dessau. Dismissed as director in 1930, Meyer went to the Soviet Union, where he taught at the College of Architecture in Moscow. From 1939-1941 Meyer was director of the newly founded Institute for Urban Planning and Design in Mexico City. In 1949 he returned to Switzerland, where he devoted himself to editing literature on architecture until his death.