The Bauhaus movement—which paved the way for slick glass office buildings and every cool mid-century Modern chair ever—is 100 years old. But do you know what it was and why it still matters?
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Bauhaus
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By Gareth hughes
design By Ceros originals
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Walter Gropius
was an architect whose career was put on hold by WWI. After the war, he used his political acumen in Germany’s shaky new Weimar government to gain control of two arts schools which he combined to form the Bauhaus or 'house of building' in 1919.
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Core Principles
Bauhaus principles reflected Gropius' desire to teach architecture and building through crafts and artistic training. His hope was that the new means of mass production would bring this heightened art to every home.
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Haus Party
The Bauhaus originated in Weimar, Germany but relocated to the famous Dassau building (shown), when the conservative Weimar government began to exert pressure on what and who the school could exhibit.
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The Faculty
Gropius recruited an all-star roster of European modernism: Swiss painter Johannes Itten, painters Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky; architect/designer Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, designer Marcel Breuer, artists Josef and Anni Albers.
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The Bauhaus Way
Some of the tenets of design we now take for granted—egalitarianism, the importance of user experience, the idea that "form follows function"—all started here.
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Art School Confidential
Student life at the Bauhaus was an prototype of high brow austerity—dumpster-diving, salvaging clothing, and experimenting with alternative lifestyles. There was even a Bauhaus band, years before the ‘80s band Bauhaus.
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The Modernism Diaspora
Like most nice things in Europe, the Bauhaus came to an end with the rise of the Nazi Party in 1933. Much of the talent came to America: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed the Seagrams Building in New York with Philip Johnson, while Gropius took over the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Photo Robert Gregson
Bauhaus in America
Gropius never warmed to the cape and colonial architecture of New England, but he did build the Gropius House in Lincoln, MA, a stunning early example of mid-century modernism. Marcel Breuer carried out some major commissions of his own, including the Armstrong Tire Building in New Haven, CT (shown) and the original Whitney Museum in New York.
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The Albers
Josef and Anni Albers, a painter and fabric artist, went to Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where they taught Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, John Cage. Joseph also did a number of graphic album covers (shown) for Concord records.
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Klee & Kandinsky
Two of the most prominent Bauhaus trained artists were Paul Klee (pronounced like 'clay') and Wassily Kandinsky. One of his Klee’s most famous works, a 1922 painting that was eerily ahead of its time, was called “The Twittering Machine.
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The Gift That Keeps on…. Without the Bauhaus, no Seagram’s building, no Barcelona chair, no cool glass Neutra houses in Palm Springs, no ‘80s new wave band of the same name, no iPhone. No kidding.
“Our guiding principle was that artistic design is neither an intellectual nor a material affair, but simply an integral part of the stuff of life.”
- Walter Gropius, 1925
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