"Now the system is being endangered by these reductions. For instance the department of regional planning is having so much difficulty raising money that it may have to be dropped. If that happens the whole program will be thrown off balance.

"The important duty of all is to try to keep all three division afloat. As I said when I resigned this summer, I feel that I myself would not be the best man to preside over the reorganization that will be necessary in the department of architecture. That, in fact, is why I resigned."

Although no one has been named to follow Gropius as chairman, it is expected that Dean Hudnut will shortly appoint a temporary head of the department.

Gropius himself plans to continue to live in Cambridge where he is head of Architects Collaborative, a group of men specializing in modern design. Gropius founded Architects Collaborative in 1946. One of its main archievements has been the planning of the new Graduate Center.

The 69-year-old Gropius was born in Germany and became internationally famous as head of the Bauhaus, an advanced school of design in Dessau. At the Bauhaus students designed everything from heavy machinery to theatrical masks, using the same techniques of space and from which Gropius later had incorporated in Design 1.

Gropius came to the university in 1938. His reputation help draw many outstanding students to the School of Design, which we called "probably the best in the nation" by Time magazine last winter.