Bauhaus

As The Great War ended so did the reign of the German Monarchy and the censorship stronghold it had over artists. With this new found freedom Walter Gropius, with monetary help from the government, set out to make what he considered to be only a dream into a reality, thus creating the The Bauhaus or Building House. Gropius believed that artists, designers, and architects would benefit from working side by side and drawing from each others disciplines, and this could be accomplished in the school he would build. The main concept behind The Bauhaus was mass production; with the idea that art should go beyond aesthetics, it should serve a purpose, and that an object and its design should work together.

To better understand the importance of this school we must first look at its history and the events surrounding its creation. The Bauhaus was founded in 1919 in the city of Weimar, while at the same time about half of mile away the New German Constitution was being written. Weimar was very important, for both politicians and artists alike, because at the time it was considered to be the cultural heart of Germany. Within The Bauhaus’ walls many renown painters, craftsmen, sculptors, designers, engineers, etc. gathered to teach their combined knowledge in a political setting where each discipline was as important as the next. In 1925, after a political power change, The Bauhaus funding was cut in half and its staff put into six month contracts forcing the school to close and relocate.

Within the same year The Bauhaus re-open its doors, this time in Dessau and in a new school building designed by Gropius himself. The new building was made out of a steel-frame with windows so large they could be consider glass walls and it followed the functionality principals taught at the school. Here Gropius distributed studio, classroom, and administrative office space  for maximum efficiency ensuring that no part of the school would go to waste. This building became the embodiment of modern architecture and in it a new design era would be created. In 1928, three years after the school’s re-opening Gropius stepped down as its director, and asked Hannes Meyer to become the new director. Under Mayer’s direction the school’s architecture, photography, advertisement and design departments grew significantly but due to his affiliation to communism he was asked to step down and replaced by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1930.


The school remained in Dessau for seven years until National Socialist German Workers’ Party took control of city’s Municipal Council and began to move against the school. By 1932, the school was facing financial hardships and was being pressured to close by the Nazi government. Ultimately, Mies was forced to downsize and relocate to Berlin where, using his own money, he turn a factory into the new school house. After less than a year in this locations, and with the Nazi party in complete control over Germany, the school was disbanded and its remaining faculty members were forced to flee to other parts of Europe and America.

Due to its unique collaborative approach towards art education, The Bauhaus was able to produce design solution that would’ve been impossible to achieve by one single person. Because of this almost every design/architecture program has adopted its curriculum and now teach classes such as color theory, 2D design, basic drawing, 3D design, etc. as part of their fundamental course. The Bauhaus was also the birthplace of many workshop techniques used by Schools of arts and crafts throughout the world today. And Though it operated for a little less than a decade in a half, its contribution towards architecture, art and design ha been so great that is easy to say that without it the world would be a completely different place today.



Hunter, Sam, John Jacobus, and Daniel Wheeler. Modern Art. Third ed. New York: Prentice Hall, 2004. Print.

Kleiner, Fred S., Christin J. Mamiya, Richard G. Tansey, and Helen Gardner. Gardner’s Art through the Ages. 13th ed. Vol. II. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2004. Print.

Janson, H. W., Joseph Jacobs, and H. W. Janson. Janson’s History of Art: The Western Tradition. Upper Saddle, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2009. Print