Taut worked in the Soviet Union in 1932 and 1933, and returned home in February 1933 to find a hostile political environment. He fled to Switzerland, then to Takasaki in Japan, where he produced three influential books on Japanese culture and architecture, and did furniture and interior design.

Offered a job as a professor of architecture at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul (now the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts), Taut moved to Turkey in 1936. Until his untimely death in 1938, he wrote at least one other book, and designed a series of teaching buildings in Ankara and Trabzon after receiving a commission from the Turkish Ministry of Education. The most significant of these buildings were the “Faculty of Languages, History and Geography” of Ankara University, the “Atatürk High School of Ankara” and the “Trabzon High School”. Taut's last work, a month before his death, was the catafalque used for the official state funeral of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on November 21, 1938 in Istanbul. Taut rests in the Edirnekapı Martyrs' Cemetery in Istanbul.

Throughout his life, he also painted, being unique among his modernist contemporaries in his devotion to color. He applied bright, shocking colors to his first major commission, the Falkenberg Housing Estate (1912) in Berlin, which was known as the “Paintbox Housing Estate”. The Crystal Pavilion of 1914, which is known for black and white reproductions, was also vividly colored. Taut's distinction from his modernist contemporaries was never more evident than at the 1927 Weissenhof Housing Exhibition in Stuttgart: in contrast to stark white creations such as those of Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Walter Gropius, Taut's house (Number 19) was painted in primary colors.

Taut's team built more than 12,000 homes between 1924 and 1931. GEHAG is still in business today and has a horseshoe logo, as a tribute to Taut.

Taut worked in the Soviet Union in 1932 and 1933, and returned home in February 1933 to find a hostile political environment. He fled to Switzerland, then to Takasaki in Japan, where he produced three influential books on Japanese culture and architecture, and did furniture and interior design.

Offered a job as a professor of architecture at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul (now the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts), Taut moved to Turkey in 1936. Until his untimely death in 1938, he wrote at least one other book, and designed a series of teaching buildings in Ankara and Trabzon after receiving a commission from the Turkish Ministry of Education. The most significant of these buildings were the “Faculty of Languages, History and Geography” of Ankara University, the “Atatürk High School of Ankara” and the “Trabzon High School”. Taut's last work, a month before his death, was the catafalque used for the official state funeral of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on November 21, 1938 in Istanbul. Taut rests in the Edirnekapı Martyrs' Cemetery in Istanbul.

Throughout his life, he also painted, being unique among his modernist contemporaries in his devotion to color. He applied bright, shocking colors to his first major commission, the Falkenberg Housing Estate (1912) in Berlin, which was known as the “Paintbox Housing Estate”. The Crystal Pavilion of 1914, which is known for black and white reproductions, was also vividly colored. Taut's distinction from his modernist contemporaries was never more evident than at the 1927 Weissenhof Housing Exhibition in Stuttgart: in contrast to stark white creations such as those of Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Walter Gropius, Taut's house (Number 19) was painted in primary colors.