movement paved the way for modernism, brutalism,
art school veganism, and every cool mid-century chair ever. So what was
it and why does it still matter? Read and learn.
Core principles
Walter Gropius, 1925
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The basics
school only existed for 14 years. And yet, its legacy endures
100+ years later like no other design institution before or since. Explore how the Bauhaus journeyed from idealistic academic experiment to
a global architecture, art and design movement.
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The Bauhaus
reflected the desire of the school’s founder, Walter Gropius, to teach architecture and building through a returned focus on craftsmanship and artistic training. He aspired to combine beauty and function in all things, and to exploit new means
of mass production made possible by the German war machine, to bring elevated art and design to every citizen. The curriculum of the Bauhaus was outlined in this 1922 diagram by Gropius, and is a visual manifestation of the school’s educational goal.
The Bauhaus Ideals
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building study
were invited to pursue the final and core phase of the curriculum, The Building—creation
of a structure that embodied all the Bauhaus principles and teachings of technique, materials, and innovation.
Select students
preliminary studies
education began with a six-month enrollment in the Basic Course—an introduction
to form, technique, material study, and color theory.
Every Bauhaus
Specialized Workshops
years were dedicated to specialized workshop courses—such as ceramics, carpentry, printing, or weaving—focusing on materials and technique.
Three Intermediate
the founder
was an architect who used his political tact in Germany’s shaky new government
to launch a new school of design. The Bauhaus, or “house of building,” was opened in Weimar in 1919.
Walter gropius
Haus Party
from Weimar to its famous Dessau building due to government influence. It relocated a final time to Berlin, but operated only a few months before Nazi pressure shut the school down permanently.
Bauhaus Moved
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Intro
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Bauhaus way
tenets of
design we take for granted today—egalitarianism, the importance of user experience, the idea that “form follows function”—all started here.
Some of the
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Faculty
an
all-star roster of European artists, architects, and designers: Johannes Itten, Wassily Kandinsky, Anni
and Josef Albers, Paul Klee, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Marcel Breuer, among others.
Gropius Recruited
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Campus Culture
Bauhaus was
a prototype of modern high brow austerity—salvaging clothing, dumpster-diving, and experimenting with alternative lifestyles. The idea of the art school hippie was born.
Life at the
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Nazism
at great odds with the Nazi Party. To the Nazis, Bauhaus represented “degenerate art.” Nazis criticized the school’s modernist styles, calling it
a front for communists and social liberals.
Bauhaus was
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Diaspora
forced
much of the school’s talent, including Gropius, to migrate to the USA. Bauhaus masters settled in locations including Chicago, New York, Cambridge,
New Haven, CT, and even Asheville, NC.
Nazi pressure
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Bauhaus mood
College in North Carolina carried on Bauhaus ideals in America. Its fabled student body included Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, Cy Twombly, Ruth Asawa, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, and Franz Kline.
Black Mountain
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Long Legacy
Bauhaus, there’s no Seagram’s Building (designed by Mies), no Wassily chair, no cool glass Neutra houses in Palm Springs, no ’80s new wave band of the same name, no iPhone. No kidding.
Without the
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Back to core principles
Back to core Principles
Back to core principles
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Back to core Principles
Back to core Principles
Walter Gropius, 1925
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movement paved the way for modernism, brutalism, art school veganism, and every cool mid-century
chair ever. So what
was it and why does
it still matter? Read and learn.
The Bauhaus
Story By ceros originals
Story By ceros originals
Design By Jeffrey Kurtz
By Gareth Hughes
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