PANGASINAN STATE UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE
URDANETA CITY, PANGASINAN
FIRST SEMESTER
A.Y. 2021-2022

BAUHAUS ARCHITECTURE
MT-01
DG-PR
DATE DUE: NOVEMBER 05, 2021

SISON, JAMAICA C.
SEAT NO: 49

AR. ALDWIN M. CASTILLO

INSTRUCTOR
 Bauhaus Architecture: Origins and Characteristics of Bauhaus
Written by the MasterClass staff

Modern architecture often features bold, clean lines, and simple functionality, from mid-century
modern to Scandinavian minimalism. You can trace all of these design trends back to a school of
architecture that began in early twentieth-century Germany: the Bauhaus school.

Bauhaus Architecture
Bauhaus architecture is a school of design and architecture founded by architect Walter Gropius
in 1919, in Weimar, Germany. The school was founded to unite fine arts (like painting and
sculpture) with applied arts (like industrial design or building design). While the Bauhaus school
became non-operational in 1933, the Bauhaus movement continued, birthing a new form of
architecture that produced simple designs that are beautiful, functional, and can be mass-
produced. Bauhaus architecture’s characteristics include functional shapes, abstract shapes used
sparingly for décor, simple color schemes, holistic design, and basic industrial materials like
concrete, steel, and glass.
The Origins of Bauhaus
Bauhaus style was born in the Staatliches Bauhaus, a German art school that functioned from
1919 to 1934. Here’s a brief overview of the school’s evolution and eventually closing:
Inception: Architect Walter Gropius, who founded the school, was upset by the rapid
industrialization of the era without any thought for artistic quality or humanity, and the large rift
between the fine arts (like painting and sculpture) and the applied arts (also called arts and crafts
during the time; things like furniture design, graphic design, and architecture). A merger of two
Grand-Ducal Saxon Academy of Fine Art and the Grand Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts
resulted in the birth of the architecture school, with Gropius leading the charge as director.
Faculty: Notable faculty of the Bauhaus school included Marcel Breuer, László Moholy-Nagy,
Paul Klee, Marianne Brandt, Johannes Itten, Oskar Schlemmer, Herbert Bayer, Josef Albers,
Anni Albers, Georg Muche, and Wassily Kandinsky.
Evolution: Over the next 14 years, the school went through several relocations and school
buildings (from Weimar to Dessau to Berlin) and several directors (from Gropius to Hannes
Meyer to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe), and its goals and tenants fluctuated with each change.
However, at its core, the Bauhaus school’s driving force was its aim to reintegrate art and
industrialization.
Closure: The school was forced to close during World War II in 1933 by the Nazi regime. After
the school’s closure, some Bauhaus students and faculty fled the city, leading to the spread of the
style throughout the world, from the United States to the Middle East.
Global impact: A New Bauhaus school was founded in Chicago (later becoming the Institute of
Design, part of the Illinois Institute of Technology); Walter Gropius went on to accept a teaching
position at the Harvard Graduate School of Design; several Bauhaus artists designed and built
over 4,000 Bauhaus buildings (called the White City) in Tel Aviv, Israel, and was declared a
UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. The Bauhaus style remains one of the most influential
design schools of the twentieth century and a vital piece of art history.

The Three Stages of the Bauhaus

The Bauhaus was born from the merging of the Weimar Saxon Grand Ducal Art School and the
Weimar Academy of Fine Art. Despite Gropius’ training there was very little architecture taught
at this time and students were introduced to the teachings of the movement through Johannes
Itten’s preliminary course. Other key faculty members at this time were Wassily Kandinsky and
László Moholy-Nagy.

In 1925, the Bauhaus moved to a new building designed by Gropius in the outskirts of Dessau.
This building encapsulated everything the design movement stood for, bringing arts, crafts and
industry together to form a single masterpiece. Radical at its time, this building was one of the
first in the ‘International Style’ Bauhaus became known for and is one of the most celebrated
examples of Bauhuas architecture to this day. This period was seen as the heyday of Bauhaus
with more leading figures in the industry joining the movement including Marcel Breuer, Gunta
Stölzl, Marianne Brandt and Paul Klee. The school also underwent directorial changes at this
time, with Hannes Meyers taking over as director in 1928, followed by Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe who all took the movement in their own unique directions.

The final location of the physical Bauhaus school was Berlin. The Bauhaus with its embracing of
modern technology and emerging international style had caught the eye of another much darker
movement gaining ground in Germany in the late ‘20s, the National Socialist German Workers’
Party (Nazi Party). The Nazis saw the Bauhaus as representing ‘foreignness’ and viewed their
designs as distinctly un-German and criticised their modernist style, so when the party gain
control of Dessau city council in 1931, they moved to close the school.
Mies moved the school to Berlin for ten months before the Gestapo closed it down again.
Though Mies fought to keep the Bauhaus open, even going so far as to speak to the head of the
Gestapo, the director and the rest of the rest of the faculty voluntarily shut the school for good in
1933. Whilst the physical school was gone, this wasn’t the end of the Bauhaus design movement
by any means.

The Bauhaus was an art and design school in Germany whose importance is astonishing given its
very brief and tenuous existence. The desk lamp and chair illustrated here are so familiar and so
simple that they don’t seem to have required a designer, but they were as radical in their time as
they are commonplace now, and their apparent simplicity was the result of a thoughtful and
meticulous design education and design process that remains a model today.

The principles of Bauhaus

1.No border between artist and craftsman. In a pamphlet for an April 1919 exhibition,
Gropius stated that his goal was «to create a new guild of craftsmen, without the class
distinctions which raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist». It is said in the
manifesto, that «architects, sculptors, painters, we must all turn to the crafts!».
2.The artist is an exalted craftsman. «In rare moments of inspiration, moments beyond the
control of his will, the grace of heaven may cause his work to blossom into art. But proficiency
in his craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies a source of creative imagination».
3.«Form follows function». According to this idea, simple but elegant geometric shapes were
designed based on the intended function or purpose of a building or an object. Though the
functionality needn’t be boring as we can see from the Bauhaus buildings.
4.Gesamtkunstwerk or the ‘complete work of art’. Gesamtkunstwerk means a synthesis of
multiple art forms such as fine and decorative arts. A building and its architecture was only one
part of the concept. The other part is design.
5.True materials. Materials should reflect the true nature of objects and buildings. Bauhaus
architects didn’t hide even brutal and rough materials.
6.Minimalism. Bauhaus artists favored linear and geometrical forms, avoiding floral or
curvilinear shapes.
7.Emphasises on technology. Bauhaus workshops were used for developing prototypes of
products for mass production. The artists embraced the new possibilities of modern technologies.
8.Smart use of resources. Bauhaus ideology is characterised by the economic way of thinking.
The representatives of the Bauhaus movement wanted to achieve a controlled finance, productive
time-consuming projects, precise material use, and a spare space.
9.Simplicity and Effectiveness. There is no need for additional ornamenting and making things
more and more ‘beautiful’. They are just fine as they are.
10.Constant development. Bauhaus is all about new techniques, new materials, new ways of
construction, new attitude – all the time. Architects, designers, and artists have to invent
something new all the time. Thus Bauhaus influenced the new forms of arts like graphic design
which emerged 100 years ago. Bauhaus also led to the emergence of new forms of interior
design.

While Bauhaus itself was operational from 1919 to 1933 its ideals are still spread worldwide and
relevant. For example, the concept of the well-known and popular modular IKEA furniture
wasn’t born in Sweden. It was inspired by the classic works of Bauhaus designers.
 The Characteristics of Bauhaus Architecture
Modern Bauhaus architecture is characterized by:
1. Functional Shapes.
Bauhaus design features little to no embellishment or ornamentation, instead drawing attention to
the streamlined design. For example, many Bauhaus buildings have flat roofs to create a simple,
geometric look. Tubular chairs—simple chairs held up by an angular length of steel tubing—are
another quintessential example of Bauhaus interior design’s beautiful functionality: functional
and straightforward, with geometric shapes and few extraneous details. Another popular
characteristic of Bauhaus design is abstract shapes, used sparingly in decoration, and a functional
option for mass production.
2. Simple Color Schemes.
Bauhaus design aims for cohesion and simplicity, so architectural color schemes are often
limited to basic industrial colors like white, gray, and beige. In interior design, primary colors are
often used—tones of red, yellow, or blue—sometimes all together but more often in focused,
deliberate ways (such as a single red wall, or a yellow chair).
3. Industrial Materials.
Since the Bauhaus movement focuses on simplicity and industrialism, it most often tries to
incorporate the fewest different materials possible, all of which are considered industrial, modern
materials. These materials include glass (especially in ribbon windows or glass curtain walls),
concrete (especially in building design, and steel (especially in appliances and objects like lamps
and chairs).
4. Balanced Asymmetry.
Bauhaus architecture and design aimed for visual balance through asymmetry. (Symmetry was
considered too industrial without any artistic heart.) As a result, Bauhaus designers worked to
unite and balance buildings and rooms by incorporating the same elements throughout (for
instance, the same materials and shapes, or repeating colors) without making both sides the
same. A landmark example of this is the Bauhaus building in Dessau, which includes several
different shapes and angles while remaining cohesive with white paint and extensive window
designs.
5. Holistic Design.
Among the essential tenets of Bauhaus design is integrating the school’s techniques into every
element of life, including city design, street corners, building architecture, furniture design,
appliances, eating utensils, and typography. This holistic, integrated approach requires the
designer to keep the school’s tenets at the forefront of every choice they make when designing a
room or building look in the Bauhaus style.

Bauhaus Influential in Design

Bauhaus influences are still evident in our current design trends:
It ushered in the “modern” wave. Before and during the Bauhaus school’s rise, design trends
were highly decorative and ornate, including Victorian style, colonial style, and art deco.
Bauhaus revolutionized the design field of the day by aiming for simple, functional buildings and
furniture. These influences carried on through modernist architecture and are still seen
throughout modern art and design, especially in Scandanavian minimalism, mid-century modern
design, apartment buildings, and office spaces.
It popularized industrial materials. The Bauhaus school likely influenced the glass, steel, and
concrete materials that have become a staple of modern interior design. Before Bauhaus, these
materials were considered aesthetically displeasing or utilitarian; the school reimagined these
materials as sleek, simple, and beautiful in their functionality. Ribbon windows and glass curtain
walls often indicate the Bauhaus influence, as do the tubular chairs (inspired by the Bauhaus-
designed Wassily chair) often used to decorate offices.
It influenced modern course instruction. The Bauhaus school had a unique syllabus design.
Students started their first year in introductory classes called the vorkurs (or “preliminary
course”), which covered subjects like color theory and design principles. After the preliminary
course, students would move on to more advanced technical courses like glassmaking or
furniture design. This class structure has been adopted by many schools of architecture and
design around the world. In 1994, the German federal government founded the nonprofit
Bauhaus-Dessau Foundation to support students of experimental design.
Bauhaus founder Gropius drew on influences as disparate as Russian Constructivism and even
English Arts and Crafts exponent William Morris who had already been talking about the
importance of utility in the 19th century.
This figures if we think of Morris’ most quotable saying: “If you want a golden rule that will fit
everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to
be beautiful”.
Similarly, Modernism had been exploring simplicity and functionality for more than 30 years
when Bauhaus set up in 1919 and it was this which was arguably the greatest influence on
Gropius and the emergent Bauhaus school.
SOURCES:
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/bauhaus-architecture-explained#why-was-bauhaus-
influential-in-design
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/german-art-between-the-wars/bauhaus/a/the-
bauhaus-an-introduction
https://www.amara.com/editorial/styling/bauhaus-design-movement#:~:text=Mies%20moved
%20the%20school%20to,school%20for%20good%20in%201933.
https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/18-24-february-2019/bauhaus-what-was-it-and-why-is-it-
important-today/