Marcel Breuer and Walter Gropius at the Museum of Modern Art with the model of the designs for the Lake Eden campus. New York Herald Tribune, 10 January 1940.

Model (left to right): Living quarters for service personnel, kitchen, and maintenance facilities (short extension); combination dining hall and theater; classrooms and workshops; student dormitory; community room (low projecting area); classrooms and workshops; students studies and faculty apartments (angled building).

In a talk given at the Museum of Modern Art to exhibit the model for the designs for Lake Eden and initiate a fundraising campaign, Gropius noted that at Black Mountain instead of an atmosphere in which ideas are not imposed from the outside -- or one might also say from the top down--, the students begin to think for themselves. He noted, "'The whole college is our client. All the many functions of a growing group of buildings necessary to house a college were carefully investigated without prejudice and without preconceived ideas of form'." He went on to say that the plans were designed to be flexible to adjust to the changing needs of the college. The general spirit was one of "'letting the life form the house'" and noted that "[t]rue tradition is building up on achievements of former periods as well as far as they are still alive, but without imitating these periods.'" 

"Gropius Finds A College Run By Teamwork," New York Herald Tribune, 10 January 1940.