Bauhaus - an art and architecture school in Germany
Paper of
Marcin Kasprzak
VDA Erasmus student of History of Art
General information
Bauhaus is the common term for the Staatliches Bauhaus, an art and architecture school in Germany that operated from 1919 to 1933 and briefly in the United States from 1937-1938 and for the approach to design that it developed and taught. The most natural meaning for its name (related to the German verb for "build") is Architecture House. Bauhaus style became one of the most influential currents in Modernist architecture. The Bauhaus had a major impact on art and architecture trends in Western Europe, the United States and Israel in the decades following its demise, as many of the artists involved, fled, or were exiled by the Nazi regime. The Bauhaus art school existed in four different cities (Weimar from 1919 to 1925, Dessau from 1925 to 1932, Berlin from 1932 to 1933) and Chicago from 1937-1938, under four different architect-directors (Walter Gropius from 1919 to 1928, Hannes Meyer from 1928 to 1930, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1930 to 1933 and László Moholy-Nagy from 1937-1938). The changes of venue and leadership resulted a constant shifting of focus, technique, instructors, and politics. When the school moved from Weimar to Dessau, for instance, although it had been an important revenue source, the pottery shop was discontinued. When Mies took over the school in 1930, he transformed it into a private school, and would not allow any supporters of Hannes Meyer to attend it.
Prehistory and origins
"From Morris to the Bauhaus" is a book title which has long become a slogan, positioning the Bauhaus in a line of development reaching back to the mid-nineteenth century in England. The artist William Morris (1834-1896) was founder and head of a reform movement whose aim it was to fight the damage incurred on culture by industrialization. From 1861 onward, he resuscitated old
Henry van de Velde, Art School building in Weimar, 1904-11
handcraft techniques in his workshops in order to produce high-quality goods such as fabrics, carpets, glass painting, furniture, and utility articles. In his own "Kelmscott Press", he published books, paving the way for the Jugendstil.
Morris produced a reform wave which was later to reach Germany, where industrialization only set in after the foundation of the Reich in 1871. Germany had also recognized that well-designed industrial products represented a considerable economic factor. The educational system in England was scrutinized in order to reform the German schools for arts and crafts. An entire generation of painters understood applied arts to be the major assignment. The Dresdner Werkstätten (1898), whose machine furniture had been designed by Richard Riemerschmid, are the most well-known example for the setting up of workshops all over Germany. The year 1903 marks the foundation in Austria of the Wiener Werkstätte, their most important representatives being Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser.
A special role was played by the Belgian Henry van de Velde, who had been in Germany since 1897, had founded the School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar in 1907, and who paved the way for the Bauhaus. The school in Weimar was even physically the direct precursor of the Bauhaus, which took up work in van de Velde's school building.
In 1907, artists and industrialists founded the Deutscher Werkbund in Munich, aimed at improving Germany's economy by "enhancing craft work". The young architect Walter Gropius soon became one
of the leading figures in the Werkbund. In line with the ideas of his teacher, Peter Behrens, he considered industrial building to be the most important contemporary form of architecture. For the Fagus-Werk in Alfeld/Leine, which he began in 1911 together with his partner, Adolf Meyer, he realized a façade with storey-high steel windows, a motif which was to become an icon of industrial architecture. In 1914, he erected a model factory for the Werkbund exhibition, in search of an expressive and inspired language for building materials such as iron and glass - which in his eyes were timely, but without expression - combining glass stairwells with monumental building volumes of Egyptian inspiration.
In 1919, Gropius succeeded in enforcing his art school reform with the founding of the Bauhaus in Weimar. Not only had he turned central ideas of the Werkbund concerning art school reform into reality, he had also captured the spirit of change of a young generation willing to rebuild a bankrupt post-World War I Germany. The name Bauhaus seemed to fulfill these expectations, and the expressionist style of Lyonel Feininger's cathedral on the front of the Bauhaus manifesto, which invited participation in this adventure, came across as modern and future-oriented.
Manifesto
The ultimate aim of all creative activity is a building! The decoration of buildings was once the noblest function of fine arts, and fine arts were indispensable to great architecture. Today they exist in complacent isolation, and can only be rescued by the conscious co-operation and collaboration of all craftsmen. Architects, painters, and sculptors must once again come to know and comprehend the composite character of a building, both as an entity and in terms of its various parts. Then their work will be filled with that true architectonic spirit which, as "salon art", it has lost.
Lyonel Feininger, Cathedral, wood-cut for the Bauhaus Manifesto, 1919
The old art schools were unable to produce this unity; and how, indeed, should they have done so, since art cannot be taught? Schools must return to the workshop. The world of the pattern-designer and applied artist, consisting only of drawing and painting must become once again a world in which things are built. If the young person who rejoices in creative activity now begins his career as in the older days by learning a craft, then the unproductive "artist" will no longer be condemned to inadequate artistry, for his skills will be preserved for the crafts in which he can achieve great things.
Architects, painters, sculptors, we must all return to crafts! For there is no such thing as "professional art". There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. By the grace of Heaven and in rare moments of inspiration which transcend the will, art may unconsciously blossom from the labour of his hand, but a base in handicrafts is essential to every artist. It is there that the original source of creativity lies.
Let us therefore create a new guild of craftsmen without the class-distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsmen and artists! Let us desire, conceive, and create the new building of the future together. It will combine architecture, sculpture, and painting in a single form, and will one day rise towards the heavens from the hands of a million workers as the crystalline symbol of a new and coming faith.
Walter Gropius, Dessau, April 1919.
Beggining: idea and programme
The Bauhaus aimed to teach the arts and crafts in tandem and to bridge the widening gulf between the art and industry. Gropius argued that a new period of history had begun with the end of the war. He wanted to create a new architectural style to reflect this new era. His style in architecture and consumer goods was to be functional, cheap, and consistent with mass production. Gropius wanted to reunite art and craft to arrive at high-end functional products with artistic pretensions. Most of the contents of the workshops had been sold off during World War I. The early intention was for the Bauhaus to be a combined architecture school, crafts school, and academy of the arts. Much internal and external conflict followed. The paradox of the early Bauhaus was that, although its manifesto proclaimed that the ultimate aim of all creative activity was building, the school wouldn't offer classes in architecture until 1927. The single most profitable tangible product of the Bauhaus was its wallpaper. The starting point oh the Bauhaus in 1919 was the proclamation of a utopian vision: the “building of the future” was to emerge all arts and crafts in an ideal unity. This was an ideal which called for a new type of artist, someone with more than just specialized academic training. It was this new artist that the Bauhaus endeavoured to train. Its founder hoped to achieve this goal by developing new educational methods and by ensuring that the practical crafts were treated as an essential pre-requisite of all art: “The school must gradually be absorbed into the workshop”. Consequently, Bauhaus artist and craftmen worked together in both teaching and production, implementing a philospophy meant to break down the separation between fine and applied arts, between art and life.
The realities of technical civilization, however, made more exacting demends – demands which could not be met by merely upgrading the status of the crafts. In 1923, the Bauhaus responded with a modified programme based on the motto “Art and technology: a new unity”. It was the programme which determined the Bauhaus’ future work. The idea was to take adventage of the possibilities offerd by industrial production to achieve a style of design which was both functional and aesthetic. The Bauhaus workshops developed a wide range of model objects intended as prototypes for mass production, from lamps to residential buildings.
The history of the Bauhaus was by no means strictly linear. The succession of directors and teachers, artistic influences from the outside and the political circumstances in which the Bauhaus experimnt took place brought continual change. In many ways, the impact of this experiment can be felt to the present time.
Classes
Thanks to the anti-academic character of the Bauhaus, students from extremely diverse standards of prior education were enrolled: A pupil from elementary school could work next to an academician.
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.
This course was headed by the best known personalities at the Bauhaus, such as Paul Klee and Vassily Kandinsky.
Johannes Itten's preliminary course 1919-1922
The preliminary course, as developed by Johannes Itten and continued by others after his departure, was part of the basic educational apparatus of the Bauhaus teachings. Preceding other courses, it was intended to teach students the basics of material characteristics, composition, and color.
His main point was the recognition and creation of contrasts which were elaborated in the most diverse forms and materials, whereby the reciprocal influence of two elements had to be accounted for.
Itten's preliminary course, Material studies by Vincent Weber, 1920/21, waste metal, tree-bark, roots, plants, and other elements mounted on plywood
Itten considered that the contrast between light and dark was one of the most valuable and expressive means of creation. Studies in contrast were carried out on very different levels, such as in the field of natural materials and their textures, or also in the realm of free sculptural form.
A further focus was directed towards material studies, in which contrasting material characteristics had to be graphically represented and, at the same time, physically experienced in a three-dimensional construction. Through this, the student made the acquaintance of different working materials.
The characteristics of abstract elements of form were tested in stripe studies. Itten saw the circle as signifying movement, the square as tranquillity, and the triangle as indicating a strong contrast of direction. The characteristics could either be emphasized in drawing or else neutralized through the choice of a particular disposition.
Nature studies were meant to comprehend objects in terms of "tone value and specific form", with the aim of reproducing them as precisely as possible in drawing, whether from nature or from memory. The studies were to be based on the inner experience of the object. These representations often define the material qualities of the models with astounding precision. Together with the investigation of contrast, form, and color, the "analysis of old masters" emphasized the emotional experience of form, color, and the dynamics of a work of art.
The favorite instrument was charcoal, which was fully exploited by the students for its general adaptability and great flexibility in shading. A variety of other works presented three-dimensional structures and collages.
Some other classes:
Ø Material studies with Josef Albers 1923-1933
Ø László Moholy-Nagy's preliminary course 1923-1928
Ø "Analytical drawing" and "primary artistic design" with Wassily Kandinsky 1923-1933
Ø Paul Klee's "elemental design theory" 1921-1931
Ø Life drawing and Oskar Schlemmer's class on "man"
Workshops
The basic idea of the Bauhaus teaching concept was the unity of artistic and practical tuition. Every student had to complete a compulsory preliminary course, after which he or she had to enter a workshop of his or her choice. This was headed both by an artist and a master craftsman. Here, the mediation of the basics of the craft, together with design parameters, were directly combined with practical experience. This could involve the development of prototypes, then to be serialised, either directly in the Bauhaus workshops, or else - most particularly during the Dessau period - for industrial production under licence.
Some of Bauhaus‘ workshops: metal, weaving, pottery, furnitures, typography, wall painting.
Archtecture
In 1919, the Bauhaus manifesto proclaims that the ultimate aim of all creative activity is a building. This meant that students participated right from the start in building projects. During the directorship of Walter Gropius, the work was mainly in his office, since the setting-up of an architecture class had been delayed. The building department, headed by Hannes
Walter Gropius, Bauhaus Dessau, 1925/26, from the Northwest, photo: Lucia Moholy, 1926
Meyer in 1927, enabled an independent training in architecture based on the requirements of the later users. in 1930, the focus under Mies van der Rohe was directed more towards aesthetic aspects.
All the Bauhaus directors were architects. Their very individual conception of building, however, cannot be jointly coined: quite on the contrary, they must be seen as exponents of strongly divergent architectural concepts. The names Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe stand for individually structured educational concepts.
Architecture and architecture classes with Walter Gropius 1919-1927
The early Bauhaus had to live with the paradox that, although its founding manifesto called for "building", the school didn't offer any classes in architecture. The courses closest to architecture were represented by material drawing. When, despite this situation, architecture tuition indeed became available, it was only because Walter Gropius readily accepted that his partner Adolf Meyer took on students in his private office and worked with them in the classical relationship of master and journeyman on the basis of incoming commissions.
Fred Forbat, detached house for the Bauhaus Estate, perspective view of the entrance side, 1922, pencil on tracing paper
The buildings of Gropius and Meyer were, in many ways, "Bauhaus buildings". Throughout his lectures and publications, Gropius made no distinction between private and school commissions. He regularly let students work on the commissions in his office and always tried to sell products and services from the Bauhaus workshops to his clients. The architecture of the Bauhaus was the architecture of the school's director. This form of collaboration resulted in famous projects: The house of Adolf Sommerfeld in Berlin, the alteration of the theater in Iena (both destroyed), the Otte house in Berlin, and the Auerbach house in Iena. The competition design for the Chicago Tribune led the Gropius office to international fame.
Only very few student projects outside the office of Gropius are known: the most important one is the planning of a housing estate for members of the Bauhaus. The first plans from around 1920 foresaw an ensemble of wooden houses, the material of the time. In 1922/23, masters and students developed other forms of housing in which the central living space was located in the middle of the building. Here, not only new techniques and materials were tested, but also new design principles as introduced to Weimar by Theo van Doesburg. Such a house was realized for the Bauhaus exhibition of 1923 after a design by Georg Muche. Adolf Meyer assured the building's realization. The Bauhaus workshops fully equipped the "experimental house am Horn". The architecture was far less radical than the interior decoration, which was intended to convey very specific ideas regarding the changed lifestyle of "New Man".
These rudiments were further developed during the following years. In particular, Marcel Breuer developed his designs against existing conventions. These were not carried out within the context of real building projects, and can only be rated as freely chosen projections into a building future. The looseness of the ties in the atmosphere at the Bauhaus in Weimar was extremely beneficial to this kind of school of thought.
Building studies with Hannes Meyer 1927-30
In 1927, Hannes Meyer was appointed director of architectural tuition. His building studies were based on three fundamental assumptions:
Ø All courses in architecture must be based on scientific facts. Major priority is given to the functionality of a building in the most practical sense. Any elaboration of a design must therefore be preceded by research on the usage, from which the building program should be developed with scientific precision;
Ø The optimization of all necessary requirements has priority over artistic considerations;
Ø All courses in architecture must be based on activities from architectural practice.
The theoretical section of the course concentrated with great intensity on studies in usage and reasoning, the results of which were documented in diagrams, so as to demonstrate the scientific approach. Meyer considered building to be pure organization, void of any creative component. The exterior of these designs, with their angular appearance and poor in detail, in which each element can be "accounted for", not only tried to break with traditional building aesthetics, but also attempted to make the design principles of New Architecture, with their emphasis on equilibrium and rhythm, seem overhauled.
Hubert Hoffmann, Foodstore built from standardized elements, detail
The correlation to building practice was secured by Meyer in a commission by the town of Dessau for four Laubenganghäuser (loggia apartment buildings). Planning and realization were both entirely in the hands of the building department at the Bauhaus.
Hubert Hoffmann, Foodstore built from standardized elements, 1930, Indian ink and tempera
The buildings were conceived with rented apartments, reachable via an open-air exterior corridor. The habitations were designed with two or two and a half rooms.
The building department was also called upon by Meyer for the construction of his design for the house of the Federal School of the German Trade Unions (ADGB) in Bernau, near Berlin. In a preliminary stage, all functions which the building was to fulfill were subject to research; their translation into architecture was the logical conclusion of the study. Meyer accounted for the general disposition of the ground plan with pedagogical imperatives of communal life. Despite high building standards regarding both the interior and the exterior, the construction has quite a parsimonious appearance. This impression was certainly intended in order to avoid comparison with feudal buildings; the idea was to develop a form of architecture specific to the working class. The building was principally equipped with pre-tested industrial products; the Bauhaus workshops were commissioned with special tasks.
Architecture classes with Mies van der Rohe 1930-33
The appointment of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe as director of the Bauhaus was programmatic: It was expected of him to reconcile Bauhaus patrons with the institution, to continue with the reforms introduced by Meyer, and, with the help of his outstanding artistic personality, to present a new Bauhaus image, particularly in architecture.
The tuition system developed by Mies was a reflection of his personal experience: The first step was the acquisition of a solid knowledge in building techniques. This was followed by studies on building types, and finally by designs in urban planning. Mies reserved the last semesters for his own classes. His personal architectural language stood at the base of his theories. Solutions to the tasks he confronted the students with were always to be found in his works; the pupils were expected to grasp and understand the unwritten rules of structure and design. Mies considered it better to offer models which could be further worked on in class, rather than to leave the students on their own with a method.
Pius Pahl, House C, Entrance, 1931
The houses designed by Mies also had to "function". The usage and design of a house were to be combined in order to satisfy both expectations. Mies avoided organizing the life of the inhabitants of his houses right until the last detail so as to minimize the inside surface of the apartments; he created incomparably qualitative spaces in which spatial freedom could be experienced. Their impact seems to derive from the preponderance of the architectural form; according to Mies, this indeed was an indispensable regulating power. His elevated ideals in the realm of abstract design could not, in its pure form, be adopted by a curriculum. Mies was conscious of the difficulty in teaching such content.
Mies' architecture was very attractive to students who had concluded their technical education in building and wished to further their aesthetic studies with him. The de...
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