Torsten Blume

Bauhaus Dessau – school and workshop

Workshop school
The Bauhaus is recognised worldwide as the birthplace and harbour of modern
design and architecture. It first became established as a school for modern designers
in Dessau in 1925, and its standing was confirmed by the construction of the new
school building, and by other Bauhaus buildings in Dessau. From 1919 to 1928,
during Walter Gropius’ reign as director, there was just one department of
architecture, open from 1927 to 1928. The department head was the Swiss architect
Hannes Meyer, the second Bauhaus director from 1928 to 1930. Until then, the
Bauhaus could best be described – with regard to the actual courses it offered – as a
reformed school of applied arts. Here, the ideas and partially realised pedagogical
concepts of a synthesis of art and crafts in circulation in Germany since the late 19 th
century were taken up, modified and above all radicalised.
In 1919, the Bauhaus programme affirmed belief in a new community of artists and
designers, whose work centred on the workshop, and who were “served by the
school, which would one day represent them!”i At the Staatliche Bauhaus Weimar,
there were classes in glass, ceramics, textiles, metalwork, cabinet-making and wood
and stone carving. For Walter Gropius, the workshops were the kernel of the new
school. Here, training in both arts and crafts were to be integrated. Classes in both
were to be held together as often as possible, mainly in the workshops, where a
process of “learning by doing” held sway. From 1920 onwards, therefore, the
workshops were led by both craftsmen and artists, known respectively as “Masters of
Works,” and “Masters of Form”. In practice, however, this system of dual leadership
resulted in conflict, particularly as the craftsmen (unlike the artists) were not
represented on the Masters’ Council, and were therefore excluded from the decision-
making process. Essentially, Gropius viewed the nine artists appointed at the
Bauhaus in Weimar as the more important of the Masters. They were, to a large
degree, free to choose the content and form of their classes.

Gestalt in the spirit of the artistic avant-garde

In 1919, sculptor Gerhard Marcks and painters Lyonel Feininger and Johannes Itten
were appointed to teach at the Bauhaus. Subsequent teachers (also painters),

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included Georg Muche (1920), Oskar Schlemmer, Lothar Schreyer and Paul Klee
(1921). Wassily Kandinsky became a Bauhaus Master in 1922; Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
in 1923. In the 1920s, Schlemmer, Feininger, Klee and Kandinsky were specifically
seen as the forerunners of the artistic avant-garde. These Bauhaus artists worked
independently to integrate diverse theories into a form of teaching, which reflected
their own creative work, and which provided material for the students’ studies. In their
own work and in classes, the artists focused on the exploration of elementary artistic
media and concepts for their new, contemporary synthesis, and on an innovative and
modern awareness of form, arising from a logical, precise and aesthetics-oriented
research into the principles of painting. The Masters of Form at the Bauhaus were
convinced, as were many of the avant-garde artists, that they had discovered supra-
historical and intercultural truths in their work. Their concepts ranged far beyond the
specific analysis of painting. For architecture, and likewise for Walter Gropius, it was
crucial that avant-garde painters saw planes and colours as independent, spatially
effective phenomena. From 1910 onwards, in a different cultural and social context,
the Russian Supremacists and Constructivists, and the Dutch De Stijl movement,
were to discover abstract colour as a self-contained subject, and new ways of
describing space through the medium of paint. At the same time, architecture had
also taken the first decisive steps towards creating spatial models informed by
planes. Frank Lloyd Wright, for instance, designed buildings in the USA where an
emphasis on the planes of wall and ceiling elements was to counteract the presence
of massive volumes. Nevertheless, painting became the vital medium of a
programmatic development in the forward-looking spatial models of Modernism. After
all, painting can take an exemplary approach to the abstract plane, and the lines,
forms and colours derived there from, whereas this is less possible in architecture,
which is more emphatically bound by material reality. From 1900, therefore, the
evolution of the new, modern perception of space and geometric spatial composition
was more rapid and radical in the visual arts than in architecture. The power inherent
to a distancing from objectivity, as a precondition for a basic analysis of space, may
be perceived to have informed Gropius’ decision to employ avant-garde painters
such as Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Oskar Schlemmer or
Johannes Itten, and later Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, as Masters of Form at the Bauhaus.
In the dissolution and redefinition of the traditional composite cubic structure – and of
every other object –, the painterly approach to the abstract plane as an autonomous

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formal element played an important role in the painters’ lessons. The focus on the
abstract plane and the cubic form gave rise to a radical critique of the traditional
forms of the wall and ceiling elements that define every space. It presented an
opportunity to redefine the fundamental concept of spatial configuration. After all,
painting was in a position to approach the abstract plane and the effects of form and
colour from a new perspective. By 1910, the construction of the Faguswerk shoe
factory in Alfred an der Leine and a factory building for the Werkbung exhibition in
Cologne in 1914 had established Walter Gropius, along with Adolf Meyer, as a
modern architect. Nevertheless, Gropius’ work at the Bauhaus was not rooted in the
modern design vocabulary, which he himself invented. Instead, he presented this, in
the formal sense, as a largely open-ended new beginning. It was not Gropius’
architectonic concepts, which were to set a precedent and provide an impetus for the
future, but the sculptural and conceptual ideas of the avant-garde Modernist painters.
Since the late 19th century, modern painting’s programmatic analysis of the modern
design vocabulary was more intense, all encompassing and radical than in other
creative disciplines. One instance of this is furnished by the 1926 publication of the
Bauhaus book “Point and Line to Plane” by Wassily Kandinsky, excerpts of which
had already been published in Moscow in 1919. Although Kandinsky extrapolated the
plane from the elements of point and line, he also defined the plane, the most
objective form of which is the square, as the basic reference for point and line. The
complex simplicity in the genesis of abstract geometric forms was to be applied to
architecture and every other form of design. The reduction of pictorial forms to
abstract elements through painting, as it was taught at the Bauhaus, was not the
Bauhaus’ goal, but rather a methodical apparatus for future designers of everyday
objects and buildings, in order to discover new design vocabularies outside the
traditional orders. The ultimate goal was to utilise art’s sensory methods of discovery
and perception for the generation of fundamentally new design models.

A place for creative all-rounders

In the manifesto of 1919, the Bauhaus defines itself as a place where the “class
distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist” are
overcome. The goal was the development of a new, universal designer, who
combined the artist’s creativity and aesthetic awareness with the craftsman’s
technical skill and focus on production, while maintaining a sense of social

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awareness and responsibility. The Bauhaus was a place of interdisciplinary
reasoning and research, with a pedagogical focus on experimental design. Openness
to new ideas and the significant contemporary debates on the nature of Gestalt
prevailed among the apprentices and students. In addition to studying the requisite
practical skills and theory, the Bauhaus student was to learn the importance of one
thing above all – that there is no casualness to design and that the creation of
something new depends on a thorough analysis of the design problem at hand. In
other words, to see a thing as if for the first time, and be willing to reduce the design
process to the elementary phenomena and processes. Even today, the preliminary
course is still acknowledged as one of the Bauhaus’ most important educational
inventions. Set up by Johannes Itten in 1919, this was initially a one, then a two-
semester foundation course, which every prospective Bauhaus student had to
complete. The preliminary course included the study of perception, and design-based
experiments that focused on the basic capacities and design potential of different
materials and media, forms and colours. The objective was to liberate the students
from all traditional, acquired preconceptions and past conventions. Taught by
Johannes Itten, the preliminary course was mainly a programme for the stimulation of
individual creative potentials. After 1923, when it was taught by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
and Josef Albers, it gained an additional function, whereby all the students were
familiarised with the rationale of the Bauhaus concept of design. Unlike the former
schools of applied arts, the Bauhaus did not aspire to the more or less direct transfer
of figments of the artistic imagination into practical objects. With the “building of the
future”, they were more concerned with the promotion of a all-embracing design
concept, which nevertheless remained relatively ill defined for a lengthy period. Here,
a uniquely complex and contradictory quest evolved, for a modern formal design
vocabulary and for the role of artists and designers in an industrialised world. In
1921, Oskar Schlemmer wrote, “… the Bauhaus (“builds”) for (…) an unexpected end
(…) that is, for the human being. Gropius seems well aware of this, and sees therein
the weakness of the academies, who take no account of the human aspect of
education”ii.

“Not against technology, but for it!“ (Laszlo Moholy-Nagy 1929)

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From 1923, with the motto “art and technology – a new unity”, Walter Gropius turned
the Bauhaus towards industry and consequently encouraged productivity in the
workshops. He also appointed the Hungarian Constructivist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy as
the new head of the preliminary course. Moholy-Nagy was a highly versatile artists:
he painted, made sculptures and installations, took photographs and made films,
designed layouts, penned texts and became publisher of the Bauhaus books.
His concepts went beyond the unification of the arts in the Gesamtkunstwerk. He
spoke of the latter in terms of a “synthesis of all life moments (…) that overrides all
isolation”iii . This idea was consistently informed by the principle “Not against
technology, but for it!“, since he saw that technology and rationalisation were
indispensable criteria for a higher standard of living and escape from the limitations
of the old bourgeois culture.iv . However, to counter the threat of an “irrelevant” and
desensitised “partial human”, art would have to serve as a systematic educational
resource, which would enhance and sensitise human perception v.
The Dutch De Stijl movement also influenced the shift towards industry and
technology. Its co-founder, the painter and theorist Theo van Doesberg, was in
contact with Walter Gropius and others at his office from 1920 onwards. In April
1921, Theo van Doesberg moved to Weimar, where he held lectures, organised
evenings of debate and gave courses on the De Stijl movement. In the process of
shaping “modern living”, he rejected the handcrafts in favour of the machine and, due
in part to his influence, the importance of the handcrafts at the Bauhaus was also
modified. Their role as a method of production diminished, and they were
increasingly viewed as a means of devising prototypes for ultimately industrial
production methods. Accordingly, the body of workshops at the Bauhaus in Dessau
changed. There were now just seven workshops: metal, cabinet-making, textile, wall
painting, printing/advertising, sculpture and theatre. In 1925, when the Bauhaus
moved to Dessau, the contentious principle applied in Weimar of appointing two
heads to each workshop was abandoned. The first representatives of the Bauhaus’
joint training in the arts and handcrafts were finally promoted, as heads of the
workshops: Herbert Bayer, Marcel Breuer, Hinnerk Scheper, Joost Schmidt und
Gunta Stölzl. These “junior masters” were able to release the interdisciplinary
concept of the older masters from the art context, and turned avant-garde art’s
generalism into pragmatic concepts for work on industrial prototypes. The new
parameters were the object’s functionality, the rationalism and efficiency of industrial

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production and the associated requirements of standardisation and typologies well-
suited to industrial production. A new emphasis was put on classes in scientific
subjects such as mathematics, geometry and physics. The old masters retained their
importance as the keepers of the interdisciplinary Bauhaus theory. Their classes now
focused on the “Grundlehre”, and enhanced the work in the workshops with the
“Formlehre” and, from 1927, “freie Malen”. In Dessau, the Bauhaus was opened as
the first “School of Design”, and in doing so became the place of origin of industrial
design. The labels of “master” and “student” were dispensed with. The Bauhaus
master became professors and the students were formally acknowledged as such.
As before, the curriculum entailed a crafts-based examination, which was passed by
a master craftsman. At the same time, the School introduced its own qualification, the
Bauhaus Diploma. This diploma was not awarded outright for one subject, but
recorded which courses and workshops the student had participated in, which
projects they had worked on and any particular abilities they might have. Hannes
Meyer, the second Bauhaus director (1928 to 1930) promoted the functional aspect
of education and favoured the scientific courses over those, which were arts based.
The third Bauhaus director Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1930-1932 Dessau, 1932-
1933 Berlin) cut down on the complexity of the lessons in favour of a focus on
architecture.

A model of Modernism
The Bauhaus was motivated by a vision of a new, better, more humane, free and
egalitarian society, which was not to be achieved by revolution as in Russia, but by
means of a sustained process of Gestaltung and education. Through most of its
history, the Bauhaus sustained this vision of the nurture of a “new human” for a new
society, which had yet to take shape, despite all its programmatic departures – from
its romantic and quasi expressionist beginnings up to the Dessau period of industry
and technology. This made the Bauhaus both a platform and a catalyst for the
modern movement, the exponents of which were almost all at the Bauhaus at one
time or another, published their concepts or works in the series of Bauhaus books, or
were otherwise active in the Bauhaus. Until 1927, the Bauhaus architecture was
mainly designed in the director’s private office. And although the Bauhaus texts
invoked a universal design concept that encompassed society – and even the world
– in its entirety, the formal statements of the “großen Bau” were realised primarily in

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the preliminary course’s material studies and abstract compositions, and the
furniture, carpets, wallpapers, door handles, lights and tableware produced in the
workshops. Nevertheless, the Bauhaus members also saw the potential of these
products as constituent parts of an all-round interior design. A focus was put on the
generally governable interiors of new living spaces, removed from the pluralism of
the outside world, which could be configured according to one basic design concept.
The interior was the most practicable stage for Richard Wagner’s mid-19 th century
concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, where the collaborative effect of diverse art forms
were to create a unified, singular experience. Here, design turned to introspection to
form “islands” of interior design that manifested a logical reformulation of the
external, chaotic industrial world. After all, the designs were conceived as prototypes
for mass production and designers educated at the Bauhaus were ultimately
expected, as “products”, to take the Bauhaus theories into the world, to bring about
lasting change. The models of introspection and exploration therefore belonged
together at the Bauhaus. Walter Gropius wanted the Bauhaus to be informed by the
“unity of a shared idea”, to bind the various artists and designers in a unique working
and living community. This ideal was eventually manifested not least by the Bauhaus
building complex in Dessau. The building, which is close to the Masters’ Houses, is a
complex fusion of workshops, classrooms, offices and living and communal spaces. It
absorbed and projected the diverse fields of activity occupied by the teachers and
students, who lived and worked here almost as in an artists’ colony.
In a number of publications, the Bauhaus presented itself in an almost familiar
fashion with pictures, which not only showed the products of the workshops, but also
the daily lives of those who worked and studied there. Many photographs show how
the members of the Bauhaus took evident pleasure in utilising the Bauhaus as a
stage, appearing in avant-garde poses or as masked and costumed figures on the
balconies or flat roofs of the Bauhaus building. In a sense, this kind of staging
explored the theatrical space of the Bauhaus as a Gesamtkunstwerk. As such, the
Bauhaus, especially from when the new school was built in Dessau, may be
described as the materialised Gesamtkunstwerk of a collective factory-school,
substantiated in the actual architecture and, equally, in the life taking place within it.
Here, the work of all the workshops was united with the fusion of progressive spatial
concepts, and in collaboration on the fitting and furnishing of the building. In this
respect, the Bauhaus was a not only a Gesamtkunstwerk, but also a workshop for

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the manufacture of many a Gesamtkunstwerk, which were to make their way from
here into the world. As in theatre, the essence of the Bauhaus building presented
diverse scenarios for the reconfiguration of the world in the spirit of Modernism.
However isolated from the world at large the individual aesthetic pieces made here
may seem, the transparency of the glass and the cubic forms of the building, for
instance, which evolve in a multiplicity of directions, illustrate an inner power, the
effects of which the building transmits into the world beyond.

Annotations:

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i
Gropius, Walter: Manifest des Staatlichen Bauhauses in Weimar. Cit. According to Wingler, Hans M: Das
Bauhaus 1919-1933, Stuttgart 1968, p. 39-41
ii
Schlemmer, Oskar: Letter to Otto MeyerAmden. Cannstatt, 3 rd February 1921. In: Hüneke, Andreas (pub.):
Oskar Schlemmer. Idealist der Form. Briefe, Tagebücher, Schriften 1912-1943, Leipzig 1989, p. 71f
iii
Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo: Von Material zu Architektur. Bauhausbuch, München 1929, p. 15
iv
Ibid., p. 12
v
Ibid., p.14