|
Results for Bauhaus
|
On this page:
|
Of, relating to, or characteristic of a 20th-century school of design, the aesthetic of which was influenced by and derived from techniques and materials employed especially in industrial fabrication and manufacture.
[German, an architecture school founded by Walter Gropius : Bau, construction, architecture (from Middle High German bū, building, from Old High German, from būan, to dwell, settle) + Haus, house (from Middle High German hūs, from Old High German).]
For more information on Bauhaus, visit Britannica.com.
There is little doubt that this German school of design was the most influential of the 20th century. Many of the leading figures of Modernism including Walter Gropius, Herbert Bayer, Marcel Breuer, László Moholy-Nagy, Wilhelm Wagenfeld, Anni and Josef Albers, Marianne Brandt, and Gunta Stölzl were closely identified with it, either as members of staff or students, and many of its avant-garde ideas were disseminated through the publication of fourteen Bauhausbücher (Bauhaus Books) between 1925 and 1930. A Bauhaus journal also appeared periodically between 1926 and 1931. As well as attracting many foreign visitors during its life in Germany (in Weimar 1919-25, Dessau 1925-32, and Berlin 1932-3), the emigration of many of its leading teachers to Britain, the United States, and elsewhere following the rise to power of the National Socialists further boosted its reputation as a progressive centre for art, architecture, and design education. The commitment of the Bauhaus to notions of a socially democratic vision of a well-designed environment, the idea of an International Style, and its position to the left of the political spectrum proved problematic in the sensitive economic climate of the 1920s and 1930s. Nikolaus Pevsner's Pioneers of the Modern Movement: From William Morris to Walter Gropius of 1936 (reformulated in 1949 as Pioneers of Modern Design in conjunction with the Museum of Modern Art, New York) did much to validate the historical importance of the Bauhaus. He presented it—via the principles of the design reformers of the Arts and Crafts Movement—as the culmination of the avant-garde's rejection of Victorian historical encyclopaedism. Pevsner's ‘Pioneers’ favoured an aesthetic that symbolically embraced the realities of the new century through exploration of new materials, modern mass-production technologies, and abstract form, ideas that were at the heart of the Bauhaus outlook from the early 1920s onwards. The achievements of the school were recognized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1938 when it mounted an exhibition devoted to the Bauhaus from 1919 to 1928. However, this proved attractive to many historians and ideologues in the aftermath of the Second World War. They were further aided in their task by the establishment of the Bauhaus Archive in Darmstadt in 1960 (moving to Berlin in 1971), the formation of a Bauhaus Archive in Dessau and the mounting of a number of dedicated exhibitions and publications.
The Bauhaus was founded in 1919 under the directorship of Walter Gropius, bringing together two Weimar art and architecture schools under the title of Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar. The Founding Manifesto of 1919 revealed the institution's ideological links with the crafts and the idea of the unification of all the arts. In the initial years there was something of an Expressionist outlook, perhaps reflecting the mistrust of many of the avant-garde in large-scale industry, which was felt to be partly responsible for Germany's participation in the First World War. At this stage Johannes Itten was a key figure, running the six-month foundation course (Vorkurs) that was centred on the exploration of materials and form. This was followed by simultaneous studies with an artist (Formlehre) and craftsman (Werklehre) and culminated in the study of architecture and building. An early major project which brought together all of these elements was the building of the wooden Sommerfeld House designed by Walter Gropius and Hannes Meyer. Some historians have seen this as an Expressionist enterprise, although others have interpreted its timber construction and decorative detailing inspired by folk art as a natural response to the shortage of building materials and access to modern equipment. However, in the early 1920s there was a very distinct shift of direction with the arrival of the Constructivist artist Wassily Kandinsky in 1922 and László Moholy-Nagy in 1923. The modernizing impact of De Stijl and Russian Constructivism was also significant at this stage. A Bauhaus Exhibition was mounted in 1923 as a means of demonstrating the economic relevance of the School to the funding authorities. The adoption of a new Bauhaus slogan—‘Art and Technology in a New Unity’—was reflected in the Modernist aesthetic of Gropius' office. Able to be viewed by the public, the furniture, designed by Gropius himself, was geometric in form and compatible with modern mass-production technologies. Also reflecting contemporary commitment to the exploration of abstract form were the wall hanging by Else Mögelin and rug by Gertrud Arndt, students in the Weaving Workshop. A key exhibit in 1923 was the Haus am Horn, designed by Georg Muche and Adolf Meyer, with interiors, furniture, fittings, and equipment produced by the Bauhaus Workshops as prototypes for industrial production. In the same year a business manager was appointed as part of a strategy to secure income through partnerships with industry rather than local government. However, the Bauhaus generally proved unable to meet delivery deadlines, provide well-designed stands at trade fairs, or price goods at competitive prices. There were other problematic aspects of Bauhaus outlook, particularly in the ways in which Gropius sought to limit the number of female students to the institution through the introduction of a more rigorous entry policy. The position of women was further undermined by attempts to restrict them to the ‘female’ crafts of weaving, bookbinding, and pottery rather than those fields more closely allied with architecture, the stated goal of the institution. Figures such as the lighting and metalware designer Marianne Brandt were notable exceptions to the general rule. Perhaps ironically in this context, the Weaving Workshop at Dessau under Gunta Stölzl was a leading centre for industrial training and equipped women graduates for work in industry.
For political reasons the Bauhaus was forced to move from Weimar to Dessau in 1925-6, where it occupied striking new Modernist buildings, with interiors, furniture, and fittings reflecting a symbolic commitment to functionalism, the exploration of new materials and abstract form, and compatibility with contemporary production technology. These ideas could also be seen in advertising and typographic work by Herbert Bayer, tubular steel furniture by Marcel Breuer, metalware by Moholy-Nagy, and the Vorkurs by Josef Albers. Although Gropius and Moholy-Nagy left the Bauhaus in 1928 notions of designing for industry were applied with greater success in the later 1920s. Commercial links were established with Körning & Mathiesen in Leipzig (lighting), Rasch Brothers in Hanover (wallpaper), and Polytextil-Gesellschaft in Berlin (textiles). Hannes Meyer succeeded Gropius as director in 1928, giving way to Mies Van Der Rohe in 1930. Just as the Bauhaus had been forced to move from Weimar in 1925 the school had to move from Dessau to Berlin in 1932 following difficulties with the National Socialist City Council. Its life was limited and the Bauhaus was closed in 1933.
A school of design established in Weimar, Germany, by Walter Gropius in 1919. The term became virtually synonymous with modern teaching methods in architecture and the applied arts, and with a functional aesthetic for the industrial age; often characterized by emphasis on functional design, the use of a repetitive interval between members of the framework of a building, and the maintenance of purely geometric forms. Often, major building components such as bays, doors, and windows are placed to coincide with this repetitive interval, although the building itself may be asymmetrical.
Bauhaus, a ‘comprehensive’ art school, which was founded in Weimar in 1919 with official support (Staatliches Bauhaus) under the direction of W. Gropius (1883-1969). It stressed the interdependence of the plastic arts under the primacy of architecture, and the importance of craftsmanship. Gropius recruited a number of notable teachers, among them L. Feininger, W. Kandinsky, and P. Klee. In 1925 the Bauhaus moved to Dessau as the Hochschule für Gestaltung, though the familiar name remained in use. It was closed in 1932, reopened in Berlin in 1933, but was almost immediately closed for good by the National Socialists.
In 1937 the ‘New Bauhaus’ was opened in Chicago under the direction of L. Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), one of the artist-teachers from Dessau.
In 1925 the Bauhaus moved to the more friendly atmosphere of Dessau, where Gropius designed special buildings to house the various departments. Gropius resigned in 1928, and the leadership was continued by the architect Hannes Meyer, who in turn was replaced in 1930 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. In the summer of 1932 opposition to the school had increased to such an extent that the city of Dessau withdrew its support. The school was then moved to Berlin, where the faculty endeavored to carry on their ideas, but in 1933 the Nazi government closed the school entirely. The Bauhaus ideas, enveloping design in architecture, furniture, weaving, and typography, among others, had by this time found wide acclaim in many parts of the world and especially in the United States. Gropius himself went to the United States and taught at Harvard, exercising considerable influence. The Chicago Institute of Design, founded by Moholy-Nagy, most completely carried on the teaching plan of the Bauhaus.
Bibliography
See W. Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus (rev. ed. 1955); H. M. Wingler, The Bauhaus, ed. by J. Stein (1969); M. Franciscono, Walter Gropius and the Creation of the Bauhaus (1971); E. S. Hochman, Bauhaus: Crucible of Modernism (1997).
A German school of applied arts of the early twentieth century. Its aim was to bring people working in architecture, modern technology, and the decorative arts together to learn from one another. The school developed a style that was spare, functional, and geometric. Bauhaus designs for buildings, chairs, teapots, and many other objects are highly prized today, but when the school was active, it was generally unpopular. The Bauhaus was closed by the Nazis, but its members, including Walter Gropius, spread its teachings throughout the world.
Bauhaus? is the common term for the 
Staatliches Bauhaus?, a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts. It operated from
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, Berlin from 1932 to 1933), under three different architect-directors (Walter Gropius from 1919 to 1927, Hannes Meyer from 1928 to 1930, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1930 to 1933). The changes of venue and leadership resulted in 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.
László Moholy-Nagy revived the school for a single year in Chicago as the New Bauhaus.
The foundation of Bauhaus occurred at a time of crisis and turmoil in Europe as a whole and particularly in Germany. Its establishment resulted from a confluence of a diverse set of political, social, educational and artistic development in the first two decades of the twentieth century.
The conservative modernisation of the German Empire during the 1870s had maintained power in the hands of the aristocracy. It also necessitated militarism and imperialism to maintain stability. By 1912 the rise of the leftist SPD had galvanized political positions with notions of international solidarity and socialism set against imperialist nationalism. World War I ensued from 1914–18.
In 1917 in the midst of the carnage of the First World War, workers and soldier Soviets seized power in Russia. Inspired by
the Russian workers and soldier Soviets, similar German communist factions—most notably The Spartacist League—were formed, who sought a similar revolution for Germany. The war provoked the
German Revolution, with the SPD securing the abdication of the Kaiser and the formation of a revolutionary government. On 1 January
Elections were held on the January 19, and the Weimar Republic was established. Communist revolution was still a tangible prospect for many; indeed, a Soviet republic was declared in Munich, before its suppression by the paramilitary Freikorps and regular army. Sporadic fighting continued to flare up around the country.
The design innovations commonly associated with Gropius and the Bauhaus -- the radically simplified forms, the rationality and functionality, and the idea that mass-production was reconcilable with the individual artistic spirit -- were already partly developed in Germany before the Bauhaus was founded.
The German national designers' organization Deutscher Werkbund was formed in 1907 by Hermann Muthesius to harness the new potentials of mass production, with a mind towards preserving Germany's economic competitiveness with England. In its first seven years, the Werkbund came to be regarded as the authoritative body on questions of design in Germany, and was copied in other countries. Many fundamental questions of craftsmanship vs. mass production, the relationship of usefulness and beauty, the practical purpose of formal beauty in a commonplace object, and whether or not a single proper form could exist, were argued out among its 1870 members (by 1914).
Beginning in June 1907, Peter Behrens' pioneering industrial design work for the German electrical company AEG successfully integrated art and mass production on a large scale. He designed consumer products, standardized parts, created clean-lined designs for the company's graphics, developed a consistent corporate identity, built the modernist landmark AEG Turbine Factory, and made full use of newly developed materials such as poured concrete and exposed steel. Behrens was a founding member of the Werkbund, and both Walter Gropius and Adolf Meier worked for him in this period.
The Bauhaus was founded in 1919, the same year as the Weimar Constitution, and at a time when the German Zeitgeist turned from emotional Expressionism to the matter-of-fact New Objectivity. An entire group of working architects, including Erich Mendelsohn, Bruno Taut and Hans Poelzig, turned away from fanciful experimentation, and turned toward rational, functional, sometimes standardized building.
Beyond the Bauhaus, many other significant German-speaking architects in the 1920s responded to the same aesthetic issues and
material possibilities as the school. They also responded to the promise of a 'minimal dwelling' written into the Constitution.
Ernst May, Bruno Taut, and
The entire movement of German architectural modernism was known as Neues Bauen.
| Bauhaus and its Sites in Weimar and Dessau* | |
|---|---|
| UNESCO World Heritage Site | |
 |
|
| State Party |  Germany |
| Type | Cultural |
| Criteria | ii, iv, vi |
| Reference | 729 |
| Region† | Europe and North America |
| Inscription History | |
| Inscription | 1996 (20th Session) |
|
* Name as
inscribed on World Heritage List. † Region as classified by UNESCO. |
|
The school was founded by Walter Gropius at the conservative city of Weimar in 1919 as a merger of the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts and the Weimar Academy of Fine Arts. His opening manifesto proclaimed "to create a new guild of craftsmen, without the class distinctions which raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist".
Most of the contents of the pre-war Weimar workshops had been sold 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.
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. To these ends, Gropius wanted to reunite art and craft to arrive at high-end functional products with artistic pretensions. The Bauhaus issued a magazine called "Bauhaus" and a series of books called "Bauhausbücher". Since the country lacked the quantity of raw materials that the United States and Great Britain had, they had to rely on the proficiency of its skilled labor force and ability to export innovative and high quality goods. Therefore designers were needed and so was a new type of art education. The school’s philosophy basically stated that the artist should be trained to work with the industry.
Thuringian Parliamentary support for the school came from the Social Democratic party. In February 1924, the Social Democrats lost control of the state parliament to the nationalists. the Ministry of Education placed the staff on six-month contracts and cut the school's funding in half. they had already been looking for alternative sources of funding. Together with the Council of Masters he announced the closure of the Bauhaus from the end of March 1925.
The appearance of Theo van Doesburg and his criticism affected the director, Walter Gropius. He now realised that what was being taught by Johannes Itten, Expressionism, was not what he intended. The latter eventually left the school and Moholy Nagy took over as the Vorkus.
After the Bauhaus moved to Dessau, a school of industrial design with teachers and staff less antagonistic to the conservative political regime remained in Weimar. This school was eventually known as the Technical University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, and in 1996 changed its name to Bauhaus University Weimar.
The Dessau years saw a remarkable change in direction for the school. According to Elaine Hoffman, Gropius had approached the Dutch architect Mart Stam to run the newly-founded architecture program, and when Stam declined the position, Gropius turned to Stam's friend and colleague in the ABC group, Hannes Meyer. Gropius would come to regret this decision.
The charismatic Meyer rose to director when Gropius resigned in February 1928, and Meyer brought the Bauhaus its two most significant building commissions, both of which still exist: five apartment buildings in the city of Dessau, and the headquarters of the Federal School of the German Trade Unions (ADGB) in Bernau. Meyer favored measurements and calculations in his presentations to clients, along with the use of off-the-shelf architectural components to reduce costs, and this approach proved attractive to potential clients. The school turned its first profit under his leadership in 1929.
But Meyer also generated a great deal of conflict. As a radical functionalist, he had no patience with the aesthetic program, and forced the resignations of Herbert Bayer, Marcel Breuer, and other longtime instructors. As a vocal Communist, he encouraged the formation of a Communist student organization. In the increasingly dangerous political atmosphere, this became a threat to the existence of the Dessau school, and to the personal safety of anyone involved. Meyer was also compromised by a sexual scandal involving one of his students, and Gropius fired him in 1930.
Although neither the Nazi Party nor Hitler himself had a cohesive architectural 'policy' in the 1930s, Nazi writers like Wilhelm Frick and Alfred Rosenberg had labelled the Bauhaus "un-German" and criticized its modernist styles, deliberately generating public controversy over issues like flat roofs. Increasingly through the early 1930s, they characterized the Bauhaus as a front for Communists, Russian, and social liberals. Indeed, second director Hannes Meyer was an avowed Communist, and he and a number of loyal students moved to the Soviet Union in 1930.
Under political pressure the Bauhaus was closed on the orders of the Nazi regime on April 11 1933. The closure, and the response of Mies van der Rohe, is fully documented in Elaine Hochman's Architects of Fortune.
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. pic needed
During the years under Gropius (1919–1927), he and his partner Adolf Meyer observed no real distinction between the output of his architectural office and the school. So the built output of Bauhaus architecture in these years is the output of Gropius: the Sommerfeld house in Berlin, the Otte house in Berlin, the Auerbach house in Jena, and the competition design for the Chicago Tribune Tower, which brought the school much attention. The definitive 1926 Bauhaus building in Dessau is also attributed to Gropius. Apart from contributions to the 1923 Haus am Horn, student work architectural amounted to unbuilt projects, interior finishes, and craft work like cabinets, chairs and pottery.
In the next two years under the outspoken Swiss Communist architect Hannes Meyer, the architectural focus shifted away from aesthetics and towards functionality. But there were major commissions: one by the city of Dessau for five tightly designed "Laubenganghäuser" (apartment buildings with balcony access), which are still in use today, and another for the headquarters of the Federal School of the German Trade Unions (ADGB) in Bernau bei Berlin. Meyer's approach was to research users' needs and scientifically develop the design solution.
And then Mies van der Rohe repudiated Meyer's politics, his supporters, and his architectural approach. As opposed to Gropius' "study of essentials", and Meyer's research into user requirements, Mies advocated a "spatial implementation of intellectual decisions", which effectively meant an adoption of his own aesthetics. Neither Mies nor his Bauhaus students saw any projects built during the 1930s.
The popular conception of the Bauhaus as the source of extensive Weimar-era working housing is not accurate. Two projects, the apartment building project in Dessau and the Törten row housing also in Dessau fall in that category, but developing worker housing was not the first priority of Gropius nor Mies. It was the Bauhaus contemporaries Bruno Taut, Hans Poelzig and particularly Ernst May, as the city architects of Berlin, Dresden and Frankfurt respectively, who are rightfully credited with the thousands of socially progressive housing units built in Weimar Germany. In Taut's case, the housing may still be seen in SW Berlin, is still occupied, and can be reached by going easily from the Metro Stop Onkel Tom's Hutte.
The Bauhaus had a major impact on art and architecture trends in Western Europe, the United States and Israel (particularly in White City, Tel Aviv) in the decades following its demise, as many of the artists involved fled, or were exiled, by the Nazi regime. Tel Aviv, in fact, has been named to the list of world heritage sites by the UN due to its abundance of Bauhaus architecture[citation needed].
Gropius, Breuer, and Moholy-Nagy re-assembled in England during the mid 1910s to live and work in the Isokon project before the war caught up to them. Both Gropius and Breuer went to teach at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and worked together before their professional split in 1921. The Harvard School was enormously influential in America in the late 1920s and early 1930s, producing such students as Philip Johnson, I.M. Pei, Lawrence Halprin and Paul Rudolph, among many others.
In the late 1930s, Mies van der Rohe re-settled in Chicago, enjoyed the sponsorship of the influential Philip Johnson, and became one of the pre-eminent architects in the world. Moholy-Nagy also went to Chicago and founded the New Bauhaus school under the sponsorship of industrialist and philanthropist Walter Paepcke. Printmaker and painter Werner Drewes was also largely responsible for bringing the Bauhaus aesthetic to America and taught at both Columbia University and Washington University in St. Louis. Herbert Bayer, sponsored by Paepcke, moved to Aspen, Colorado in support of Paepcke's Aspen projects.
One of the main objectives of the Bauhaus was to unify art, craft, and technology. The machine was considered a positive element, and therefore industrial and product design were important components. Vorkurs ("initial" or "preliminary course") was taught; this is the modern day Basic Design course that has become one of the key foundational courses offered in architectural and design schools across the globe. There was no teaching of history in the school because everything was supposed to be designed and created according to first principles rather than by following precedent.
One of the most important contributions of the Bauhaus is in the field of modern furniture design. The world famous and ubiquitous Cantilever chair by Dutch designer Mart Stam, using the tensile properties of steel, and the Wassily Chair designed by Marcel Breuer are two examples.
The physical plant at Dessau survived the War and was operated as a design school with some architectural facilities by the Communist German Democratic Republic. This included live stage productions in the Bauhaus theater under the name of Bauhausbühne ("Bauhaus Stage"). After German reunification, a reorganized school continued in the same building, with no essential continuity with the Bauhaus under Gropius in the early 1920s [1].
In 1979 Bauhaus-Dessau College started to organize postgraduate programs with participants from all over the world. This effort has been supported by the Bauhaus-Dessau Foundation which was founded in 1974 as a public institution.
American art schools have also rediscovered the Bauhaus school. The Master Craftsman Program at Florida State University bases its artistic philosophy on Bauhaus theory and practice.
Many outstanding artists of their time were lecturers at Bauhaus:
|
|
 Stage |
 Ceiling with light fixtures for stage |
 Studio wing |
 Mechanically opened windows |
 Mensa (Dining room) |
| Western art movements |
|---|
| Renaissance · Mannerism · Baroque · Rococo · Neoclassicism · Romanticism · Realism · Pre-Raphaelite · Academic · Impressionism · Post-Impressionism |
|
20th century
|
| Modernism · Cubism · Expressionism · Abstract expressionism · Abstract · Neue Künstlervereinigung München · Der Blaue Reiter · Die Brücke · Dada · Fauvism · Art Nouveau · Bauhaus · De Stijl · Art Deco · Pop art · Futurism · Suprematism · Surrealism · Color Field · Minimalism · Lyrical Abstraction · Post-Modernism · Conceptual art · Young British Artists |
....
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
| bauhaus |
Join the WikiAnswers Q&A community. Post a question or answer questions about "Bauhaus" at WikiAnswers.
Copyrights:
 |
 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Modern Design Dictionary. A Dictionary of Modern Design. Copyright © 2004, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Architecture. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
|
| German Literature Companion. The Oxford Companion to German Literature. Copyright © 1976, 1986, 1997, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more |
 |
| Fine Arts Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Bauhaus". Read more |
Search for answers directly from your browser with the FREE Answers.com Toolbar!
Click here to download now. 
Get Answers your way! Check out all our free tools and products.
Mentioned In:
