BAUHAUS

BAUHAUS TO POST MODERNISM

• The Bauhaus, an innovative German school of art and design was
founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius, the school uses a foundations
course and workshop experiences to train students in theory and
form, materials, and methods of fabrication.
• Buildings are simple, functional, and industrial. Devoid of any
applied ornament, they often appear asymmetrical and three
dimensional, such that one must experience the building from all
sides.
• The Bauhaus taught design in conjunction with modernism. In its
Design, spaces took on a quality related to the abstract character
of the current painting and sculpture (Cubism and related
movements).
• Ornament came solely from the visual effects created by
combinations of materials.
• The Goal was to unify art and technology, creating an aesthetic
suited to the modern mechanistic world by relating materials, from,
B A U H A in
and function U SanT Oabstract
P O S T visual
MODER NISM - BAUHAUS
vocabulary.
• Building Types: schools, offices,
and government buildings.
• Architects orient buildings so that
they receive the most sun exposure
to take advantage of natural light.
• Structures sit on flat plains of grass.
• The most important construction
materials include steel, glass, and
reinforced concrete, sometimes a
brick masonry applied on the face
of the concrete.
• Exteriors are plain, simple, and
unornamented.
• Windows were fixed in grid
patterns.
BAUHAUS TO POST MODERNISM - BAUHAUS
BAUHAUS DESSAU

Main Bauhaus school building

the sheer glass wall with no outer

support
BAUHAUS TO POST MODERNISM - BAUHAUS
• The basic structure of the Bauhaus consists of a clear and carefully
thought-out system of connecting wings, which correspond to the
internal operating system of the school.
• Gropius' extensive facilities for the Bauhaus at Dessau combine
teaching, student and faculty members' housing, an auditorium, and
office spaces.
• Instead of making the walls the element of support, as in a brick-
• The technical construction of
built house, our new space-saving construction transfers the whole
the building is demonstrated
load of the structure to a steel or concrete framework.
by the latest technological
development of the time: a
skeleton of reinforced
concrete with brickwork,
mushroom-shaped ceilings
on the lower level, and roofs
School and workshop are connected through a two-story bridge, which
covered with asphalt tile that
spans the approach road from Dessau
can be walked upon.
BAUHAUS TO POST MODERNISM - BAUHAUS
 HARVARD GRADUATE CENTER
• It was designed by The
Architects’ Collaborative.
• The group of eight buildings
arranged round small and
large courtyards has a good
community feel about it and is
humanly scaled.
• The dormitory blocks are
constructed in reinforced
concrete with exterior walls of
buff-colored brick or
limestone and the community
buildings are in steelwork.
• Block-mass buildings
connected by flat-roof Exterior view of the Harvard
canopies. Graduate center
B A U H A U SorT O superficial
• No exterior POST MODERNISM - BAUHAUS
 Exterior view of the Harvard
Graduate center

Exterior view of the Harvard

Graduate center - Dormitories
BAUHAUS TO POST MODERNISM - BAUHAUS
 Masters’ House by Walter Gropius
BAUHAUS TO POST MODERNISM - BAUHAUS
 Tugendhat House by Mies
BAUHAUS TO POST MODERNISM - BAUHAUS
FURNITURE SYMBOLS & MOTIFS
• Unornamented and radically • There is no vocabulary for
different, Bauhaus furnishings suit motifs because buildings are
Bauhaus concepts of the modern generally unadorned.
home. • Some works include unique
• Designs stress simplicity, architectural details that are
functionality, excellent a part of the building
construction, and hygienic structure.
industrial materials.
D E C O R AT I V E A R T S
• Furniture is lightweight and space
saving. • After 1923, the metals
• Standardization of form and workshop produced many
interchangeable parts are key ash trays, tea and coffee
design considerations. services, kettles, dresser
• Furnishings are movable to sets, and pitchers in brass,
support flexible arrangements. bronze, and silver.
• Designs, of metal, are simple and • Forms are simple and
B A U H A Uwith
functional S T O Pno
OST M O D E R N I S Mgeometric
applied - B A U H A Uwith
S no applied
 Wassily Chair
by Marcel bruer

MR Chair by Mies

Desk by Marcel Bruer

BAUHAUS TO POST MODERNISM - BAUHAUS

 Marcel Bruer
Nesting Tables

Bauhaus Chair by
Marcel Bruer
BAUHAUS TO POST MODERNISM - BAUHAUS
Bauhaus Bed

Bauhaus Bench

Barcelona Table Bauhaus Coffee Table

Bauhaus Sideboard

Bauhaus Table

BAUHAUS TO POST MODERNISM - BAUHAUS

Cantilever Chair

Arm Chair by
Corbusier

Folding Table, by
Gustav
Hassenpflug
BAUHAUS TO POST MODERNISM - BAUHAUS
German(Barcelona) Pavilion statue

Wall Hangings from Bauhaus

Decorative Arts,
Metalwork by Brandt
BAUHAUS TO POST MODERNISM - BAUHAUS
WALTER GROPIUS

BAUHAUS TO POST MODERNISM

• Walter Gropius was born in Berlin in 1883. The son of an architect,
he studied at the Technical Universities in Munich and Berlin.
• He joined the office of Peter Behrens in 1910 and three years later
established a practice with Adolph Meyer.
• Gropius is best known through the influence of the German Design
school called the Bauhaus, established under Gropius’s direction at
Weimar in 1919.
• After the closing of the Bauhaus in 1932, Gropius’s influence
continued through his work in England and subsequently, in the
United states, as well as through his leadership of the architectural
department at Harvard university from 1937.
• Under Gropius’s direction, Harvard became the first American
design school to accept the ideas of the modern movement.
• Gropius created innovative designs that borrowed materials and
methods of construction from modern technology. This advocacy
of industrialized building carried with it a belief in team work and an
B A U H A Uof
acceptance S standardization
T O P O S T M O D Eand
R N Iprefabrication.
S M – W A LT E R G R O P I U S
• Bauhaus, at
MDessau,
A J O R Germany,
W O R KS
1919 to 1925.
• Gropius House,
at Lincoln,
Massachusetts,
1937.
• Harvard
Graduate
Center, at
Cambridge,
Massachusetts, Glass wall admits light into mudroom and entry hall,
GROPIUS
1950. HOUSEyet protects privacy of main entrance.
• Modest in scale, revolutionary in impact.
• Combined the traditional elements of New England architecture —
wood, brick, and fieldstone — with innovative materials rarely
used in domestic settings at that time — glass block, acoustical
plaster, and chrome banisters, along with the latest technology in
B A U H A U S T O P O S T M O D E R N I S M – W A LT E R G R O P I U S
fixtures.
These eaves protect the southern-facing rear from excessive
sunlight. The openings between the eaves and wall promote
air circulation.

Upstairs deck, outside Gropius' daughter's

room.

B A U H A U S T O P O S T M O D E R N I S M – W A LT E R G R O P I U S
Gropius designed
Cups
Gropius F51 Sofa
Gropius F51 Arm Chair

Newspaper shelf
by Gropius Gropius D51 Sofa
B A U H A U S T O P O S T M O D E R N I S M – W A LT E R G R O P I U S