The Bauhaus school was created when Walter Gropius was appointed head of two art schools in Weimar and united them in one. He coined the term Bauhaus as an inversion of 'Hausbau' - house construction. Gropius wanted to create a new unity of crafts, art and technology at a school with an international and interdisciplinary orientation. Its goal was the building as a Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art). Through the innovative methods of an integrated way of teaching art, the idea was to equally prepare young artists in theory and practice for the new task.
Teaching at the school concentrated on functional craftsmanship and students were encouraged to design with mass-produced goods in mind. Studies at the Bauhaus began with the obligatory preliminary course, which conveyed methods for working with artistic material using a new pedagogical and sometimes experimental approach. This was followed by training in the workshops that largely eliminated the separation between work and theory. The goal of the education was to apply what had been learned in the theory of building.The heart of the education was apprenticeship in the workshops, which offered a broad spectrum ranging from the processing of glass to the use of wood, ceramics and metal to stagecraft, typography, photography and advertising. The workshops were initially headed by the dual team of a craftsman as the work master and an artist as the master of form in order to guide art and technology into a new unity. The goal of the workshop activities was to apply the theory of building.
The small, international school – which very quickly made a name for itself – had an active political and cultural life that integrated all of the arts. Modern lifestyles were tested, women were allowed to study outside of the women’s classes and a libertarian approach prevailed. The parties, which were celebrated on the birthday of Walter Gropius and other occasions, were also legendary. Enormously controversial and unpopular with right wingers in Weimar, the school moved in 1925 to Dessau.
The Bauhaus moved again to Berlin in 1932 and was closed by the Nazis in 1933. The school had some illustrious names among it's teachers, including Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Marcel Breuer. Its influence in design of architecture, furniture, typography and weaving has lasted to this day - the look of the modern environment is almost unthinkable without it. Like no other institution in Germany, the Bauhaus represents the modern age in the 20th century.
Interview with Wilfred Franks (one of the few surviving students from the Bauhaus, dated 1999) The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation Today
http://www.bauhaus-dessau.de/index.php?en
A comprehensive assembled collection represents the variety of assignments given to students at the Bauhaus in Weimar (1919-1925), Dessau (1925-1932), and Berlin (1932-1933)
http://library.getty.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=76390
7 comments:
The Bauhaus was a focal point of many revolutionary ideas of the 1920s. Artists and people had a new way of dealing with life in an aesthetic level. Walter Gropius was a German officer who dreamed of a school of art that would change the world. He developed the first workshops that trained young men and women to become artists and craftsman of different sorts.
There was a large focus on different textures from things that easily could be found in junk yards.
Advertising and graphic design became very simplified, typography used no serifs.
Thanks Mauro, Mike---anyone else with comments PLEASE?
MN
It is amazing that people were being trained at a school for crafts pretty much. It is similar of a trade school, where students learn a skill (maybe more) that could be applied to outside work and merchandise. All people were being trained as artisans rather than construction workers. The idea the Gropius designed the building at Dessau with everything under one roof is ideal, but is hardly ever done at major colleges and universities today, where buildings are constructed at different time periods.
...art teacher hates my work - take over germany...
The Staatliches Bauhaus, an art school in Germany operational from 1919 to 1933, was closed on the orders of the Nazi regime in 1933. The Nazis, along with other right-wing political groups, considered the school to be a front for communists, especially because of the involvement of many Russian artists. Despite this, the Bauhaus had a major impact on art and architecture trends in western Europe and the United States in the following decades. Their focus on merging commercial demand with aesthetic design produced a style that favored simplicity while embracing new technology.
difistThe Bauhaus was a great place to go to start a career or learn a new trade. There were many workshops within the Bauhaus ranging from carpenter's, metal workers, a pottery workshop, facilities for painting on glass, mural painting, weaving, printing, and wood and stone sculpting workshops.
Bauhaus was essentially an opening of schools (literally and figuratively) that gave people the skills they needed in order to be able to express their creativity. The schools- workshops- trained ordinary people in advanced methods of art that they would otherwise be unable to learn outside of a school for carpentry or other specialized institutions. Such schools gave rise to many architects and designers that would go on to define the generation in art.
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