You'd expect the Design School, able to bridle the creativities of a few hundred of the artiest people in Cambridge, to put on a big show for its own.

It did it Friday for Walter Gropius, former chairman of the department of Architecture and spiritual leader of Harvard's graphic gurus.

"As festive an occasion as we've had at this University in a long time," remarked President Pusey on the speakers stand.

"Ho ho," chuckled a steel-rimmed grad student peering at a two-inch strawberry blown to twice its size by the glass of champagne it floated in. "What a gas. Hee hee."

For Walter Gropius it was his 85th birthday. He grabbed hands and grinned his way through 300 friends and fans all wearing flourescent orange and day-glo green buttons reading "Vote Grope."

The artsy-craftsy people in Robinson Hall turned the lobby into a convention hall. They hung a low ceiling of streamers and balloons, and carried "Grope in '68" posters bobbing above the heads of the crowd.

Speakers talked into a dead microphone about what the man had done for technology and design. A kid in a sweat shirt wandered up and asked a grad student in a "Grope for President" hat what was going on.

The student started telling something about how the man had started the Bauhaus School in Germany and that was what everyone was studying now. When he looked up towards the speakers' platform, the kid grabbed a "Grope" button and ran.