Historic New England Launches Design Competition for Public Restrooms at the Gropius House
North elevation of the Gropius House (1938) in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
Completed in 1938, the former family home of Modernist architect Walter Gropius in Lincoln, Massachusetts, is one of the most visited of the more than three dozen sites under the stewardship of historic preservation nonprofit Historic New England, which is the oldest and largest organization of its kind in the United States. However, the visitor bathroom situation at the National Historic Landmark–listed residence, a lone portable toilet standing next to the original garage-turned-visitor center, doesn’t exactly reflect this popularity.
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The visitor center, housed in the original garage on the property, and porta-potty. Photo courtesy Historic New England
Fortunately, big changes are possibly afoot on the lavatory front with news that the organization has initiated a design competition seeking solutions for what Historic New England calls a “long-standing problem” at the Gropius House. Open to practitioners across design disciplines (a parallel competition is open to design and architecture students), the competition calls for permanent, accessible, and thoughtfully designed public bathroom facilities as well as a redesigned visitor center at the site. Entrants are invited to submit “creative, contextually sensitive solutions that integrate seamlessly with the site and architecture, while enhancing visitors’ sense of arrival and connection to the landscape.”
It's worth noting that a Gropius House porta-potty alternative isn’t necessarily a sure thing in the near future as a budget or construction timeline following the competition haven’t been announced. Historic New England notes that it “aspires to ultimately realize the winning design, or a variation thereof, onsite.”
The competition launch coincides with the centenary of Bauhaus Dessau, a building complex in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, that from 1925–1932 housed the Gropius-founded Bauhaus School of Art, Design, and Architecture.
Historic photo of Walter and Ise Gropius at the rear of the house. Photo courtesy Historic New England
“The history of the Bauhaus is, above all, a history of ideas,” said Allen Kolkowitz, a former designer in the offices of Marcel Breuer & Associates and trustee of Historic New England, in a statement (Kolkowitz conceived of and is underwriting the competition.)
“We are launching this initiative as an exceptional opportunity to conduct a global survey of the Bauhaus’s enduring influence—how its philosophy continues to shape contemporary design practice,” he adds.
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Interior Gropius House views of first-floor foyer (1) and bedroom (2). Photos by John Russo, courtesy Historic New England
Donated to Historic New England (then operating as the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities) in 1979 by Ise Gropius a decade after her husband’s death, the modest residence, which melds vernacular New England architecture with early 20th-century material innovation, opened to the public for guided tours as a historic house-museum in 1984. The house, which contains original furnishings, artwork, and personal belongings, was envisioned as both a private family dwelling and as a teaching tool by Gropius, who fled Nazi Germany and relocated to the Boston area with Ise and daughter, Ati, after accepting a professorship at the Harvard Graduate School of the Design. Marcel Breuer, a protégé of Gropius, later joined him on the Harvard GSD faculty and designed many of the Bauhaus-fabricated furnishings found in his mentor’s family home.
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Gropius standing at the upper hallwy landing at his home outside of Boston. Photo courtesy Historic New England
The deadline for competition submissions is February 6, 2026. Finalists will be announced on February 27, and the winning professional and student proposals will be announced in late March. An exhibition of the winning bathroom designs will be on view at the Gropius House next summer. Winners will receive a cash prize as well as inclusion in the Gropius House archives. Submissions will be reviewed by a five-person jury that includes NADAAA founding principal and RECORD contributor Nader Tehrani and Suzanne Stephens, former RECORD deputy editor and current contributing editor.
More information on the competition, including key dates and submission guidelines, can be found here.
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