Inspired by a vision
of bringing artists and craftsmen together to start a movement in art, which
would change the future of the world, Walter Gropius opened the doors to Bauhaus.
The year was 1919 when Gropius founded Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar. Germany was
bankrupt after a devastating World War I and the younger generation was eager
to make positive changes. Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined
crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it
publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German
term Bauhaus, literally "house of construction" stood for
"School of Building".
Walter Gropius in Weimar founded
the Bauhaus school. In spite of its name, and the fact that its founder was an
architect, the Bauhaus did not have an architecture department during the first
years of its existence. It was founded with the idea of creating a 'total' work
of art in which all arts, including architecture would eventually be brought
together. The Bauhaus style became one of the most influential currents in
Modernist architecture and modern design. The Bauhaus had a profound influence
upon subsequent developments in art, architecture, graphic design, interior
design, industrial design, and typography. The school existed in three German
cities (Weimar from 1919 to 1925, Dessau from 1925 to 1932 and Berlin from 1932
to 1933), under three different architect-directors: Walter Gropius from 1919
to 1928, Hannes Meyer from 1928 to 1930 and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1930
until 1933, when the school was closed by its own leadership under pressure
from the Nazi regime. The Bauhaus philosophy encouraged everyone to
collaborate. In a radical move, women were allowed to enroll though they were
almost exclusively placed in the weaving workshop. A unique feature of
their program was the melding of handicraft and industrial production methods.
Some seminal Bauhaus
designs include a 1923 model for public housing designed in a highly modern
style, with light, airy and clean interiors, including a domestic kitchen
designed by Benita Otte based on principles of scientific management. Breuer's
Cesca chairs (1928) expanded his use of tubular steel around the house. Then
there is the geometric tour de force
of Marianne Brandt's teapot (1924), made by hand but intended as a prototype
for mass-production. And Herbert Bayer's universal typeface (1926) was a
perfect embodiment of Bauhaus ideas: simple, economical of form, legible and
clean, and international no umlauts or capital letters to declare its
German-ness. In Dessau, Gropius designed the famous Bauhaus building in an
industrial aesthetic, with concrete and steel and a curtain wall of glass that
we now recognize as the basic components of modern architecture. Through
design, the Bauhaus sought a universal language of form that would break down
the barriers reinforced by the recent World War 1.
The main influences behind the
Bauhaus were modernism, the English Arts and Crafts movement, and
Constructivism. Gropius reconciled these disparate influences at the Bauhaus,
where the reigning principles were unity of form and function, the idea that
design is in service of the community, and a belief in the perfection and
efficiency of geometry. The Bauhaus was famously
clutter-averse, teaching acolytes to discard the unnecessary, champion the
streamlined and the utilitarian, and design always with mass production in
mind. The democratization and Everyman aspiration of design shops, from Ikea to
Muji, shows the influence of the Bauhaus They believed that if you combined
modern design and practicality and utility, the public would be converted
Bauhaus.
The great influence
of the Bauhaus can still be seen around the world today. Much of what we call
sleek, modern, utilitarian “international style” today can be traced back to
the Bauhaus. Some say even the iPhone’s design comes to us indirectly via the
Bauhaus. Besides the actual architecture and industrial design (lamps,
furniture, graphics, appliances) of the Bauhaus, the word “Bauhaus” itself has
taken on an aura of its own. Others have appropriated the name in many fields,
from a British gothic rock band to a German home improvement store chain. The
several variations of the Bauhaus typeface are all based on Herbert Bayer’s
1925 experimental Universal typeface.
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| Art Deco: Tamara de Lempicka, The Musician & Michael Kungl, Americana Deco Coffee. |
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| logos of Faboo Taboo and Axion |
Hunter, Sam, John Jacobs, and Daniel Wheeler. Modern Art. New York: Prentice Hall PTR, 2004.
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