Allie Farlowe wrote about Walter Gropius and his TAC teapot in our Collection Highlights. An excerpt is below.
In 1945 Gropius helped found his final architectural firm with seven former Harvard pupils. It was called The Architects Collaborative (TAC) and was based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. TAC was organized in a very democratic fashion. The architects designed as a team, an approach that was reminiscent of the “collaborative spirit” at the Bauhaus. It would become one of the largest architectural practices in America. The firm, which was active until 1995, would complete a variety of commissions including the Harvard Graduate Center (1948), the United States Embassy in Athens, Greece (1957), and the Rosenthal Ceramic Factory in Selb, Germany (1965).
Gropius and his TAC collaborators, architect Louis A. McMillen (1916-1998) and designer Katherine De Sousa (b. 1945), were tasked with creating a tea and coffee service for Rosenthal following the factory project. From this service, a “design classic” was born. The vessel, known as the TAC 1 teapot, has a sleek domed body, a short flaring spout, and a curved handle that echoes the shape of its form. Like its Bauhaus predecessors, this teapot exudes a sense of elegance, simplicity, clarity, and functionalism. In essence, there is a timeless modernity to it even though it was first produced almost sixty years ago.