| |
|
|
|
|
Walter Gropius (1883-1969)
architect & Alma´s husband no.2
Listen to Walter Gropius' voice:
Statement
on the "Bauhaus" movement (0,3 MB)
In 1910, during time spent in the spa resort of Tobelbad with
her second daughter Anna, Alma became acquainted with the
young German architect Walter Gropius. After eight years of
marriage with Gustav Mahler, characterized by privation and
austerity, Alma´s pent-up longing to be taken seriously
as a woman now exploded within her. The two became utterly
absorbed in unbridled nights of love. After she had departed,
Gropius committed an unbelievable blunder; he wrote Alma a
passionate love letter which he mistakenly addressed to Gustav
Mahler. Although, in the confrontation that inevitably followed,
Mahler defeated his rival, the price he paid was the loss
of his virility, of which it was Sigmund Freud´s task
to cure him in a short session of analysis.
|
|
 |
|
Walter
Gropius as a soldier |
|
|
Following Mahler´s death in 1911, a four-year separation
ensued between Alma and Gropius when the latter learnt that
Alma had given herself to Mahler as he lay dying, at a time
when Gropius supposed her already to be his. But it was Alma´s
separation from her amour fou, Oskar Kokoschka, which brought
reconciliation in Berlin, in 1915. This led to Alma´s
marriage to Gropius, from which their beautiful daughter Manon
was born. 1919, following a dramatic premature labour, Alma
gave birth to little Martin, of whom paternity was however claimed
by her then lover Franz Werfel. Finally, in 1920, Gropius agreed
to a divorce and withdrew from Alma´s life. |
|
