Gropius Residence, Lincoln, Massachusetts, 1938 c. 1938

Curator: Paul Davis captured this image of the Gropius Residence in Lincoln, Massachusetts, back in 1938. It's currently held in the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It feels so…stark. That spiral staircase—it's almost whimsical against the rigid geometry of the building itself, but ultimately it is cold, like a machine. Curator: Right. Davis really highlights the clean lines and functional design, characteristic of the Bauhaus movement Gropius championed. Think about the labor involved in constructing such streamlined forms, the concrete, the steel. Editor: Absolutely. You're seeing the very DNA of modernism right here, that pursuit of efficiency and standardization, a world remade in the image of industry. It’s both inspiring and a little unsettling, don’t you think? Curator: I do. It leaves me wondering, what does "home" truly mean? What is it becoming?