"Gropius's first large building, the Fagus Shoe-Last Factory in Alfred on the Leine in 1911... was materialized due to his connection with Peter Behrens—and in cooperation with Adolf Meyer... as had been the case with most of his early structures. The starting point for the young architect was the already existing site plan, the ground plan, and construction plans of the architect Eduard Werner, as well as the foundation, which had already been laid. A loan from the American United Shoe Machinery Corporation made the continuation of the construction possible in 1911, and continued until 1912 step by step under the new concept of Walter Gropius. The whole operational procedure was newly thought through, according to the inner functions, and then articulated in a three-dimensional form. The client's wish for an attractive faŤade was solved by Gropius in a special way: by means of a projected steel skeleton, which pulled the function of support to the inside, thereby making possible a broad dissolution of the exterior envelope into glass walls; the idea of the 'curtain wall' was at this point first expressed in a consistent manner."

— from Udo Kultermann. Architecture in the 20th Century. p32-33.