Bauhaus - History and impact of the german school of design and architecture

(Class held by Lotja Loon, 15.05.2008, at Sede Imparafacile a Vulcano)

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Bauhaus (“House of Building” or “Building School”), was probably one of the most important Designer-Schools at the beginning of the last century. And that not only for its innovative designs but also for the impetus of the school in the international discussion about designs for the industrial mass production.

To really understand Bauhaus in its rather short excistence as such, a little trip into Germany's historical situation when Bauhaus was founded in 1919, is necessary.

Bauhaus (“House of Building” or “Building School”), was probably one of the most important Designer-Schools at the beginning of the last century. And that not only for its innovative designs but also for the impetus of the school in the international discussion about designs for the industrial mass production.

To really understand Bauhaus in its rather short excistence as such, a little trip into Germany's historical situation when Bauhaus was founded in 1919, is necessary.

Germany had just lost WW I, had become, for the first time since it’s existence, a republic (Weimarer Republik) and was - socially, socialogically, politically reigned by an absolute chaos.

On the one hand there was the liberal republican government and the abolishment of censurship to some degree, on the other hand there was a very radical left, orientated towards the Russian Revolution, and – the country was full of maroding, nationalist, right-wing ex-militaries of extreme dangerousness, more or less tolerated by the government.
The German society was torn between those extremes, thus it was a time of experiments and desorientation on all sectors: politics, industrial mass-production, sexuality, art and architecture.

In this situation the German architect Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus school in the German city of Weimar. Actually he was appointed to succed in the leadership of an already existing school, but he so dramatically and radically changed this, that we might as well speak about founding a new school.

Bauhaus came out with a radical new design: very straight lines, much light through big windows, visible structure.
It was ment to be counterpoint to the unstable, insecure state of the German republic. A counterpoint in architecture and design. A counterpoint to the chaotic and obscure living, the poverty, the radical seperation of all kinds of sectors within the society.

It can be seen as an intent to train a new kind of generation of artist-designers, who would be immersed in the practical and theoretical work of building the environment, shaping everyday life and thus modernizing the conciousness of an entire society.

At a time when industrial society was in the grip of a crisis, the Bauhaus stood almost alone in asking how the modernisation process could be mastered by means of design.

Bauhaus rallied so called masters and students who sought to reverse the split between art and production by returning to the crafts as the foundation of all artistic activity and developing exemplary designs for objects and spaces that were to form part of a more humane future society.

Consecuently, it was not only an innovative training centre but also a place of production and a focus of international debate.

The Swiss painter Johannes Itten, German-American painter Lyonel Feininger, and German sculptor Gerhard Marcks, along with Gropius, comprised the first faculty of the Bauhaus.

Strangely enough – and despite of Walter Gropius being himself an architect – the Bauhaus school did not have an architecture departement for the first several years of its existence.

Although in the beginning designs came out of the office of Gropius, which worked close together with Bauhaus - actually there was no separation between both.

Thanks to the anti-academic character of the Bauhaus, students from extremely diverse standards of prior education were enrolled: A student coming from elementary school could very well study next to an academical student.

In order to provide a common working base, including an introduction to the school's very own principles as to the creation of objects, the Bauhaus developed a specific preliminary course. This enabled the pupils to be trained in how to work with materials, and to get acquainted with the characteristics of colors and forms.

Masters of these workshops were such famous artists as the above named Feininger and Marcks and also Paul Klee and the Russian painter Wassily Kadinsky - to just name a few.

When in the early twenties the regional government of Weimar changed from a liberal to a right-wing one, the funding for the school was cut drastically, and 1924 it moved to Dessau, where it was sponsered again.

In this city was designed and build the famous Bauhaus-school-complex, which included not only the school-housing but also housing for the masters and a student residence.

Of course the interior of the houses was designed very individually by the masters themselves.

In the years 1926 – 1932 famous works of art and architecture and influential designs were produced in Dessau.

Gropius resigned as director of the school in 1928 – worn out by the constant struggle of economic funding and Hanns Meyer, a swiss artist and marxist, was appointed.

Meyer’s goal was to scientifically study the needs of the working class people and thus to develope housing and other objects of daily use that would fit into these needs…

Beautiful design that would not only be functionally and adecuate but also would fit into times of massproduction – and would be accessible for the working class.

Everything designed and developed in the 2 years of Meyer being director of the school was done with this idea – be it interior design or houses – the focus always being the possibilty of mass-production.

Despite of his success as a director and the great output of the school, Meyer was forced to resign 1930 after only 2 years because being a marxist.

He had brought many a communist student to the school and effectively: Quite a number of them went to the USSR after Meyer left the school.

Under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who succeeded Meyer, the Bauhaus developed from 1930 into a technical school of architecture with subsidiary art and workshop departments.

1932 the Nazi-party won the regional elections in Dessau and Bauhaus was forced again to move – this time to Berlin.

1933, the year the Nazi-party won the general elections in Germany, Bauhaus was forced to dissolve itself.

Bauhaus and its style of simplificated architecture, of accesible products for the masses, was heavily attacked by the Nazis even after its dissolvation and Walter Gropius emigrated 1934 first to England, later to the USA.

Hanns Meyer had emigrated already 1930 to the USSR, where he worked as a university professor.

Only Mies van der Rohe, who behaved rather oportunistic and even colaborated with the Nazi-Regime, stayed in Germany and could work there. He went 1937, than again 1938 to the USA, first on a visit, later to stay and work there.

Bauhaus as an Institution had a great influence not only in Germany but internationally upon design and art and especially upon the connection of both.

Lotja Loon