Magazine No 5 2019 / 2020

ZKM I Karlsruhe, Germany

* Fritz Kuhr, 1928; student at the Bauhaus from 1923–27,

member of staff in the wallpainting workshop 1928–29, teacher of drawing 1929–30 at the Bauhaus

THE WHOLE WORLD A BAUHAUS*

 In the 1921 Weimar Bauhaus programme László Moholy-Nagy
Walter Gropius announced the creation of Painter, photographer, typographer,
stage designer, art theorist and teacher
a total work of art: “The Bauhaus strives for 20 July 1895 in Bácsborsód / Austria-
a unity of all artistic creation, the reunification Hungary – 24 November 1946 in
of all the art disciplines – sculpture, painting, Chicago / USA
the crafts and trades – to form a new art
of building in which they are all indispensable Born in southern Hungary as the son
of the Jewish farmer Lipot Weisz,
components. The final, if distant goal of the Moholy-Nagy – the later pioneer of
Bauhaus is the unified work of art – the grand modernism – was raised by his uncle
in Mohol in today’s Serbia. After
building – in which there are no borders his father left the family, his mother
between monumental and decorative art.” (…) was helped by her lawyer, named
“The Bauhaus wishes to train architects, Nagy, to bring up her six children.
This led to László choosing his own
painters and sculptors of all standards according new name and going his own way.
to their abilities to become either hard-working He began to study law but this was
artisans or free artists, and to found a working suddenly interrupted by the First World
War, where he fought and was badly
community of leading and young working wounded on the Russian front. After
artists, a community that knows how to design his recovery he focused entirely on
experiments with photography without
a camera (photograms). The book
Painting Photography Film (1925) set
out his theory of “new seeing.” From
1928 he was back in Berlin, designing
intermedial decorations for the Kroll
Opera and the Piscator Stage.
In painting, he experimented with
materials like aluminum and Bakelite
and used Plexiglas placed in front of
canvases to create transparent three-
dimensional effects. His experiments
led to the construction of a mobile
installation made of glass and metal,
the Room Modulator. In 1934 he
divorced his wife – the Bauhaus photo-
grapher and writer Lucia Moholy,
who, along with Herwarth Walden,
had strongly promoted his career
from 1921. In 1937 he emigrated to
the USA with his second wife Sybille
Pietzsch, via Amsterdam and London.
On the recommendation of Gropius, he

buildings in their totality – shell construction, painting. After the Hungarian Republic
of Councils fell in 1919 he went to
fitting out, and ornament and decoration – Vienna, and then in 1920 to Berlin and
in a like-minded spirit and unified design.” in 1923 to the Bauhaus, first in Weimar
T
became director of the New Bauhaus
Chicago, which was forced to close the
following year due to lack of funds. In
1939 Moholy-Nagy opened the School

and then in Dessau. Moholy-Nagy
This “grand building,” based on ideals of taught in the foundation course and
became the form master in the metals
Medieval cathedral construction, remained workshop. Together with Gropius, he
utopian, but in several projects the Bauhaus became editor of the 14 Bauhaus
H
of Design and in 1944 the Institute of
Design, the last school he was to teach
in. His last book, Vision in Motion (1947),
represents a synthesis of his work as a

E
teacher, artist, and theorist.
did come close to the total work of art. In 1921, Books from 1924. His photographs led
Text: Astrid Volpert
to a “photo boom” among students.
students took part in building Walter Gropius‘s “Writing with light” led him to abstract
and Adolf Meyer’s “Haus Sommerfeld” in
Berlin. In 1923 numerous masters and students
– from the weaving, carpentry, metal, and
ceramics workshops – worked on the

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“Experimental House at Horn,” designed by
painter and Bauhaus master Georg Muche.

I The Bauhaus building in Dessau, designed by

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The Whole World a Bauhaus presents eight chap- Walter Gropius and opened in 1926, and the
ters with varied, exciting and surprising insights master’s houses there were also “total” works,

N into work and life at one of the most important art in which masters and students worked together

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academies of the twentieth century – the Bauhaus, and used products from the Bauhaus workshops.
founded in Weimar in 1919. In 1926 the Bauhaus This led to the making of metal and wooden

T moved to Dessau, and in 1932, when the Nazis

made it impossible to continue there, it moved to
furniture, lamps, and also to the colour plans

A
for the interior. 927
u, 1926 / 27, 1
ilding Dessa
Berlin, only to finally close forever in 1933. Bauhaus bu
Aerial view,

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The wish to create a total work of art is also
This exhibition presents photographs, works seen in the work of the theatre workshop,

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on paper, models, documents, films, and objects, in the expressionist plays of Lothar Schreyer
inviting you to explore the wide range and diversity at the Weimar Bauhaus, in which language,

O of Bauhaus theory and practice in contemporary

modernist design in architecture, everyday ob-
jects, painting and theatre, and including theories
gestures, colours, and sculpture were all
radically interlinked. Plans for theatre by László
Moholy-Nagy, such as the “Sketch of a Score

D and models of teaching. The Bauhaus always for a Mechanical Eccentricity: Synthesis of

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endeavoured to create suitable and improved Form, Movement, Sound, Light (Colour) and
environments, and to promote new ways of life. Smell,” also had the character of a total work

U In each thematic chapter in this exhibition you will

of art, or a “total work,” as Moholy-Nagy put it.
also find selected biographies of Bauhaus people,
O
C
based on one work and illustrating differences
and common ground in their careers.
Throughout the fourteen years of its existence the
R
T Bauhaus underwent a constant process of redefi-
nition and reinvention. Strategy was enthusiastically
discussed and defined – and often disputed –
K
I
by the three Bauhaus directors, the architects
Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe, and the Bauhaus masters and

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students. For this exhibition, audio recordings of There was always lively debate and controversy
some of these different positions at the Bauhaus

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concerning the purpose and significance of the
and also of contemporary critical voices from Bauhaus at the Bauhaus itself, and also outside,

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outside have been made, and you can listen to and this continues to this day. This is illustrated
these on headphones. by posters with quotations from various sources,
mostly from newspapers from 1945 to today.
They show the reception history and the changing
interpretations of the Bauhaus.
F

imar
Boris Friedewald

s We
Curator of the ifa touring exhibition

h au
A

B au
t ate
R
the S
m of
o gra

T
d pr
to a n
nifes
, Ma
tion)
st r a lu
er (il
r il 19 Feining
20
el
c ove r), Lyon
r, A p
hed s (autho
ral ”
with r Gropiu
“ C at
e
Walt
 Mar ia
nne
B ran
dt , A
s ht r a
y, 19
2 4

T “Architects, sculptors, painters, we all

must return to the crafts!” Walter Gropius A
H
demanded in the Bauhaus Manifesto of
R
S t aa
A lm t lic he B 1919. Therefore, the first goal was to
a Bu il
s c h d ste l l e
S t aa
er, E B
r i c h e r l i n, H have every student learn a craft in one of
Bren ous

E
t e the workshops. Artistic creation was only

T
l i del
M ar c h
t ha e B il dst (fur n at Hor n
iture ,
Er p s
(c ar
elle
B ), 19 children possible on the basis of a handicraft,
em, view of the pet) er lin, H 23 ’s be
e), House Sommerfeld in Berlin -Dahl
Staatliche Bildstelle Berlin (Carl Rogg e), 19 20–21
, Lá a
s z l ó u s at H
dr o o
m, v and the artist was a more intensive kind
Adolf Meye r (archi tectur
court yard, Walter Gropius und M oh
o ly-
o r n,
l
i ew
of t h of artisan.
N ag iving ro e di
ning
y (w o m, room
all li M ar
ght)
, 192 c e l Breu and
k i tc h In early 1922, there was a debate about
3 er (f en
ur ni
ture individual or mass production. Walter

T
), G

C
y ula
Pa p Gropius noted: “Master Itten recently
(lam
p) , demanded that we must decide whether
to create individual and unique works in

O R
complete contrast to economic realities,
or whether we need to get closer to
industry.” In this debate, Itten himself

T
came down in favour of the individually
made unique work, quite in line with the
original Bauhaus idea. A
A Gropius announced a decisive new
direction in 1923, with the new slogan “Art
and Technology – a New Unity.” This was
F
L to be highly significant for the future
development of the Bauhaus, and it led
to Johannes Itten leaving the Bauhaus.
T
S
In the catalogue of the large Bauhaus
Exhibition of 1923 in Weimar Gropius
stated that the Bauhaus was not a school

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for handicrafts, and that its goal was
contacts with industry. The workshops
would now focus on standardised proce- Otto Lindig, Dornburg ceramics
Kitty (Catharine Louise) van der

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weaving studio De Wibstrik in
dures, making prototypes and models that
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workshop, Coffee pot L16, 1923
Mijll Dekker (Kitty Fischer) Nunspeet in 1933. She became
were suited to industrial serial production. Textiles designer 22 February a member of the Association for
0

Trades and Crafts, which made

The first results of this new approach
lication crossplay, 192

1908 in Jogyakarta / Java
her eligible to participate in an

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– 6 December 2004 in
were functional products consisting of just

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Nijkerk / Netherlands exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum
a few parts and often very basic shapes, Amsterdam. She was also
awarded a silver medal at the
such as the combination teapot by She was born on Java, where Triennale di Milano for two

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Theodor Bogler, the “Slatted Chair” by her father was an administrator

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cellophane textiles. In 1934
on a tobacco plantation. At the
Marcel Breuer, the legendary “Bauhaus age of eight, she moved to The
Greten and Hermann separated,
and Kitty and Hermann
Lamp” by Carl Jakob Jucker and Wilhelm
d, Heiland,“ from the pub

Netherlands and attended a continued to run the business as

Wagenfeld and the Bauhaus chess set by citizen’s school in The Hague the hand weaving and design

until 1925. At age seventeen,
Josef Hartwig. In 1925, Bauhaus Book she went on educational tours of
No. 7 was published, entitled “New Works Switzerland, the USA, and
from the Bauhaus Workshops.” It England. At Hornsey School of
H
studio K.v.d. Mijll-Dekker. In
1935 Kitty was awarded a gold
medal for her contribution to the

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World’s Fair in Brussels and in

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Art in London, she studied water- 1937 she received a Diplome
amounted to a catalogue for orders for color, drawing and art history. D’Honneur at the Paris World’s
Bauhaus products, as Gropius said: She then took private lessons Fair. This recognition of her work
Lothar Schreyer, „Heilan

with the interior designer Jan Buys

“The Bauhaus workshops are primarily led to commissions from the

F O
and the industrial designer Cor Dutch royal family from 1938.
laboratories in which models are Alons. These two gave her She also made wall hangings
developed and continually improved for references for her application to and curtains for public buildings,
typical products of our time to be produced The Bauhaus was able to derive income the Dessau Bauhaus in 1929. designs for the Dutch textiles
After finishing the foundation

in series.” The same year the Bauhaus
Dessau published the “Catalogue
of Patterns,” in which Bauhaus products
L
from the sale of goods and to thereby course, she studied there in the
industry, including for flooring
and wall panels. Using geo-
gain some independence from the need weaving workshop. She metrical forms, modern weaving
for public subsidies. Students also experimented with form and techniques, and color tones

A
materials, including cellophane reminiscent of the Bauhaus, she

were advertised and could be ordered.
Gropius had suggested that the main
principle in the design of these products
benefited, as they participated in the and synthetic yarns. In November
profits from their designs and the sale 1931 she passed her
of licences, thereby covering part of their apprenticeship examinations in a
textiles factory in Rummelsburg / 
O
revolutionized the classic kitchen
dishcloth. Kitty and Hermann
both survived the period of

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German occupation during the
living costs. When the Bauhaus moved

was “research into their essence.” He
said: “A thing is determined by its essence.
To be able to design it to work properly
Pomerania that belonged to the
to the new building in Dessau in 1926, father of fellow-student Margot
Meschke. In April 1932, she
the workshops were equipped with received Bauhaus diploma no.
G
Second World War. In 1950 she
married her German partner,
who had graduated from the
Bauhaus building and interior

T
new machines that made it possible to

Y
– be it a container, a chair, or a house – it 66 as a weaver and then design workshop. From 1934 to
23

is necessary to first research its essence; produce prototypes for industry as well returned to Holland. Together 1970 she taught at the Institute
, 19

with fellow students Hermann

as Bauhaus own products in larger for Crafts Teaching in Amsterdam.
gia

it should serve its purpose perfectly, Fischer and his wife Greten
Text: Astrid Volpert
r in

being practical and functional, long-lasting, numbers. This transformed the workshops Kähler, she established the hand
hu

into real production facilities, where

fT

inexpensive and ‘beautiful.’”

te o

teaching nonetheless continued.

St a

It was under the charge of Hannes

he
of t

Meyer, who advocated “the needs of the

cy

people before the needs of luxury,” that

ren

the most successful standard Bauhaus

c ur

product was made. These were the

ncy
rge

Bauhaus wallpapers, whose designs

me

were chosen in a student competition.

r, E
ay e
rt B
r be
He

Otto Lindig, Dor nburg

ceramics wor kshop, Pla
te, 1922 / 23
 Today the Bauhaus is seen as one of the
most innovative and influential art schools of
the twentieth century. Walter Gropius, its
founder, was certain that “art cannot be
controlled, but the technical means can be.”
This was why the Bauhaus established
workshops for wall painting, metals, weaving,
and carpentry as the centrepiece in the
training of apprentices and journeymen,
aus
marking a clear innovation when compared Rohe at class in the Dessau Bauh
Pius Pahl, Ludwig Mies van der

A
Wilke (fron t), Hein rich Neuy,
to the classical art academies. The first with students, Anne marie
le), 1930/31
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (midd
workshops were the gold, silver, and copper
workshop (later the metal workshop), the

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graphic printing workshop, the bookbinding
workshop, and the weaving workshop.
In 1920 there followed the workshops for

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Unknown Designer, Walter Grop
ius, houses, from the publication
ceramics, glass painting, wall painting,
“State Bauhaus Weimar 1919 –23”,
 1923 and wood and stone sculpture. In 1921 the
carpentry and theatre workshops were
founded. R
A
Marcel Breuer There were difficulties at first in finding the
Architect and designer Unknown Designer, Structured cloth pattern “Semmer ing” no. 187
from a pattern book with Bauhaus textiles, 1928–31 teachers who were able to both teach the

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21 May 1902 in Pécs / Austria-
Hungary – 1 July 1981 in New appropriate skills and crafts while also

D
York City / USA addressing artistic issues. “First a new
generation which was able to combine both Architect Hannes Meyer became

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At the age of eighteen, Breuer qualities had to be educated,” Gropius later Bauhaus director in 1928, and he
– a Hungarian from a Jewish
said. This was the reason that the workshops reorganised the curriculum, merged

I
family – signed up as a student
at the Vienna Academy of Fine were jointly led by a “work master,” respon- several workshops, increased the

A
Art, but he soon left there for the
sible for the practical skills, and a “form period of study, brought numerous
Bauhaus with some of his painter guest teachers in, and also organ-
master,” responsible for formal and design

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compatriots. From 1920 to 1924,
he was a student and young questions. This principle was maintained until ised lectures by scientists. Meyer
consolidated the training of

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master in Weimar, and his final
apprenticeship piece was the
the Bauhaus moved to Dessau, when it was
dropped. architects, which had only been

A
Ladies’ Dressing Table for the
Am Horn model dwelling. He de- introduced to the Bauhaus in 1927.
signed avant-garde wooden He also introduced the teaching of

T furniture like the Romantic Easy

Chair (African Chair) (with Gunta
If students wished to train in one of the work-
shops, they first had to pass the Foundation
sports and photography. He

L
Stölzl). In Dessau, he headed the wanted to focus more than previ-
furniture workshop from 1925 to Course, which was taught by Johannes Itten ously on “studies in practice,” in

S
1928 and developed a system of and later by László Moholy-Nagy and Josef particular through participation in
chairs made of steel and extra
strong yarn (such as the Wassily
Albers. The Foundation Course was intended joint construction projects, for
Armchair). He had these objects to develop students’ creative abilities, and to which very precise analysis of the
made in his company Standard free their minds from conventional approaches future uses of the buildings would
Möbel Lengyel & Co, and from
and the principles of existing and past styles

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1929 by Thonet. From 1928 provide a “scientifically founded
to 1931 Breuer ran an architect’s and movements. Gropius said: “First the design.”

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studio in Berlin, where he whole person, and then – as late as possible
designed the apartment of
– specialisation.” When Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

theatre director Piscator. In 1932
he completed his first building,
Haus Harnischmacher in
E
Firma Rasch, Bauhaus wallpaper patterns, designed by Bauhaus students, 1932
was appointed Bauhaus director in
1930, students with the right prior

E Wiesbaden, which was destroyed

in the Second World War. His experience and training were able

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attempts to become established to enrol without having to do the
in the New Building movement hitherto obligatory Foundation

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failed, with the one exception of
the Doldertal Apartments (with Course. A lot of theory was now

A
Alfred and Emil Roth, 1936). taught, and the length of the studies
From 1935 Breuer worked as an
was significantly cut. In 1930, on

H
architect for Francis Reginald
Stevens Yorke in London. In the occasion of his appointment,

G
1937 he was appointed to teach Mies said: “I don’t want jam, I don’t
at the Graduate School of
want workshops and school,

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Design at Harvard University,
where he and Gropius established
y), The Bauhaus, set
, model XVI, 1924 I want school.”
ckaging typograph

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the architecture program. ), Joost Schmidt (pa
In Cambridge / MA the two men Josef Ha rtwig (game design

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operated a shared studio and
business until 1941, and Breuer
designed the Gropius House in

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Lincoln / MA (1938).

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From 1926 to 1934 he was
married to Bauhaus student
Martha Erps, and in 1940 he
married his secretary Constance
Crocker Leighton. From 1946 he
Y
O
focused his work completely on
architecture, moving his office to
New York and building seventy
private dwellings in New England,

G
in which he combined white
modernism with regional
materials and trends. In 1952,
Breuer, Pier Luigi Nervi, and

Y
Bernard Zehrfuss designed the
UNESCO Building in Paris, and
from 1953 to 1957 he worked
with Abraham Elzas on the
De Bijenkorf department store in
Rotterdam. In the 1960s Breuer
designed the French winter
sports resort Flaine and the
Whitney Museum in New York.
In 1966 he became a member of
the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences. He had been
already represented in 1938 in
the MoMA Bauhaus exhibition, Unknown Designer, Scheme of teaching, from the publication
and in 1948 he had a solo show “State Bauhaus Weimar 1919–23”, 1923
at MoMA.
Text: Astrid Volpert

in Dessau, 1928 / 29
ing class in the Bauhaus building,
Unknown Photographer, Wall paint
 Irena Blühová
Photographer, journalist,
university lecturer
2 March 1904 in Považská-
Bystrica / Austria-Hungary
– 30 November 1991 in
Bratislava / Czechoslovakia
Blühová taught herself photo-
graph and at the beginning had
to earn a living working in a
bank. It was not until 1930 that
she was able to register as a
student at the Dessau Bauhaus.
During the period when Mies van
der Rohe was Bauhaus director,
she finished the foundation
closed in summer 1932, she did
not continue her studies. There
seemed to be no place for socially
critically and experimental works
in Blühová’s home country, and
her political left-wing convictions
led her to join the Communist
Party. From 1933 she ran the
Communist Party publishing
house and bookshop in Bratislava,
under the BLÜH logo. She was
particularly interested in socio-
logical research on the provinces.
Between 1939 and 1945 the
Slovak state collaborated with
the Nazi regime. Blühova had to
quit her studies in the film
department at the arts and crafts
In 1948 she became a mother,
and concentrated in her photo-
graphy on the themes of children
and women. In her works, she
utilized the techniques and
rational formal principles of the
Bauhaus, which meant that they
were not reduced to simple
agitation and propaganda. From
the 1970s there were solo exhi-
bitions of her work in West
Germany and Hungary, and in
1974 in the Bauhaus Archive in
West Berlin.
Text: Astrid Volpert

course and worked in the work-
shops for photography and
advertising and typography.
When the Dessau Bauhaus
Kurt Kranz, Iw
school and go underground.
After the war she struggled to
find a place in the male-
dominated world of photography.

ao an
d Michiko Yama
Lotte Gerson-Collein, The largest and the smallest Bauhaus members,
Peter Bücking and Takehiko Mizutani in the vestibule of the Bauhaus

waki on the
building in Dessau, from bauhaus. Journal for design, 2 / 3, 1928

ter race of the Ba

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A
Erich Consemüller, Marcel Breuer and his “harem,”
from the left: Marta Erps-Breuer, Katt Both, Ruth Hollos-Consemüller 1927

uhaus canteen
D

in Dessau, 192
I
C
C

7
O
A Marianne Ahlfeld-Heymann (attributed), exercise from the class
M
L
“pictorial form theory” by Paul Klee, 1923–24

Theodore Lux (Lukas) Feininger

Photographer, painter,
university lecturer
11 June 1910 in Berlin – 7 July
Berlin photography agency
Dephot (German Photography
M
U
Service), thanks to Umbo, who
recommended him. During his
time at the Dessau Bauhaus,

P
2011 in Cambridge / MA, USA
he took many photographs, in
particular of everyday Bauhaus

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Theodore Lux Feininger was life and the Bauhaus stage
the son of the painter Lyonel workshop. In 1936 he moved

E
Feininger and his wife Julia to New York and first worked
and was born in Berlin. As a there as a freelance painter. Up

I
high school student in Weimar, to 1947, he exhibited his work
he began to experiment with in Europe and the USA under

D
photography, first using a the name of Theodore Lux and
camera that belonged to his thereafter used his full name.

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grandmother and then with his From 1950 to 1975 he taught at
own 9 × 12 cm plate camera. In various American universities,

A
1926 he began his studies at the beginning at the Sarah Lawrence
Dessau Bauhaus. After finishing College in New York from 1950
the obligatory foundation As well as this community of labour, Gropius

Y
to 1952, where he taught design.
course, he was a member of
Oskar Schlemmer’s Bauhaus
From 1953 to 1962 he taught was just as interested in the living community

G
stage from 1927 to 1929, and a
member of the Bauhaus choir
from 1928 to 1932. From 1929 to
1932 he sporadically attended
drawing and painting at the Fogg
Museum at Harvard University of masters and students, which he also
in Cambridge /MA, and he noted expressly in the Bauhaus programme.
was the professor for drawing
and painting at the Boston Arts
This was a community with shared leisure

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some Bauhaus courses. In
this period his main interest
was painting, and he began to
Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, paint himself. Between 1929
Museum School from 1962 activities, particularly evident in the Bauhaus
to 1975. evening events and the legendary Bauhaus
Text: Boris Friedewald
river Elb
e 1928 parties. In 1932, Bauhaus director Ludwig
ip at the

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“The three primary colors yellow, and 1931 he worked for the
on a bath
ing tr Mies van der Rohe also noted the importance
bers
aus m e m of this working and living community, just as
red, blue, distributed on the
Colle in, Bauh
corresponding primary shapes Ed m u n d
with identical surface areas,
the closure of the Dessau Bauhaus was
imminent: “There is no educational institution

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triangle, square, circle …,” color
panel from the colors seminar with to match the Bauhaus in Germany and
Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, from
the whole world. Particularly in the past two
Mar ianne
“pictorial fo

the publication “State Bauhaus

Weimar 1919–23”, 1923 years, relations between teachers and
students in Dessau have gained a far greater
A hlfeld -Hey

quality of cooperation than can be achieved

rm theory ”

in any other German university.” And van der

Rohe’s predecessor, Hannes Meyer, also
made the cooperative and collective work of
mann (attr
by Paul K le

everyone at the Bauhaus his guiding principle.

The goal of a cohesive community at the
ibuted), ex
e, 1923–24

From the very early days, the idea of a Bauhaus was, however, repeatedly challenged
Bauhaus “community” was common currency, by the formation of specific interest groups,
and its meaning shifted in many ways over such as the separatist Mazdaznan community
ercise from

the years. In the very first school programme led by Johannes Itten at the early Bauhaus,
of April 1919 Walter Gropius emphasised and also by communist groups during the
that the aim was “to train architects, painters eras of Hannes Meyer and Mies van der
the class

and sculptors of all standards according to Rohe. And the “equality of the sexes” that
their abilities to become either hard-working Gropius had proclaimed at the beginning was
artisans or free artists, and to found a not always easy – it had to be renegotiated
working community of leading and young in the Bauhaus community many times over
working artists.” the years.
 Marcel Breuer, “Bambos 3,”
design for a settlement in
Dessau for young masters,
from bauhaus. journal for
design, 1, 1928
Bauhaus Dessau, Advertising broch
all the circles of the cultural world
C
O
Unknown Photographer, Bauhaus living estate area, Walter Gropius,
(design), Farkas Mólnar (drawing), 1922
M M on tage with phot
os of the stude
es
nt demonstrat
M eyer, 193 0
io n to
M
otog ra ph er, to r Ha nn
Unknown Ph direc
al of Bauhaus
st the dismiss
protest again
U
N
I
T
Y
Friedl Dicker (Dicker-Brandeis)
Painter, textiles designer, interior
designer, art teacher
30 July 1898 in Vienna / Austria-
Hungary – 6 October 1944 in
Auschwitz-Birkenau (Oświęcim)
concentration camp / Poland
The life and work of the
Holocaust victim Friedl Dicker
were long forgotten, although
she was one of the most creative
Weimar Bauhaus students.
After doing an apprenticeship
in photography at the Vienna
Experimental Academy of
Graphics (1912–14) she attended
the textiles class at the school of
arts and crafts and the Vienna
private school of the Swiss artist
and teacher Johannes Itten,
where she took on his teaching
concept based on the individual
needs of each student. When
Itten was appointed in Weimar in
1919, she followed him there. She
did not pursue a typical woman’s
Bauhaus career by working in
weaving, printing, or book-
binding, but was very active in
other fields, including the design
of the Bauhaus almanac Utopia.
Documents of Reality. She also
designed and produced stage
sets and costumes, puppets and
games, and furniture and jewelery.
With her partner Franz Singer,
she designed four apartment
ure / order card for the journal “bauhaus,
”, folder, 1927
Juan . Kör ner, b
© ifa,
O’G o
A
r man dhübsc he
, H ou
il
se wit Fotografie
h stud
io for
Diego
River
a and
Fr ida
K
ahlo,
Mexic
o Cit y
, 1931
Faik Tagirov, Book cover, VChUTEIN, Higher State Artistic-Technical Institute in Moscow, Moscow, 1929
© Yale University Library
Hannes Meyer (editor), Ernst Kálla
i (copy editor), bauhaus. journal
The Whole World a Bauhaus?
In only fourteen years, between the spirit of renewal
in the Weimar Republic and the rise of National
Socialism, the Bauhaus came to stand for modern
for design, 2 / 3, 1928
floor plans for a low-level
building (1922–23). Today these design and avant-garde ways of life. The exhibition
are seen as the earliest Bauhaus
architecture designs done with
The Whole World a Bauhaus, which explores
the participation of a woman. the theme in two parts, takes its name from a 1928
From 1926, the Singer-Dicker quote by Fritz Kuhr, who was a Bauhaus student
studio in Vienna was designing
for clients all over Europe. Her
and then teacher. The title is programmatic, alluding
interior design for the Kinder- to the blurring of the borders between art, the crafts,
garten Goethehof in Vienna and technology, as proclaimed by Bauhaus founder
(1930) won several awards. In
1931 Dicker and Singer separated. Walter Gropius. Everything is design, and the
She ran a studio and began to creation of a modern environment also leads to the
teach art. As a member of the creation of a modern mankind
Austrian Communist Party
she made acerbic collages and
posters with anti-Fascist
For the exhibition at the ZKM I Center for Art and
messages. She was arrested in Media Karlsruhe, this exhibition title gains a further
1934 and had to flee to Prague. dimension. While the first part of the exhibition
In the resistance, she worked with
the Black Rose bookshop circles.
presents the ideas and products of the Bauhaus
She gained Czechoslovakian itself in eight thematic chapters, the second part
citizenship through her marriage focuses on a view from the margins. The perspective
to Pavel Brandeis in 1936 and
ran an interior design business. shifts from Germany during the Weimar Republic to
In 1938 the couple fled to the globally operating avant-gardes that found their
northern Bohemia. In December own answers to processes of social transformation
1942 they were both deported to
the Theresienstadt ghetto, in the 1920s. Artists encountered the Bauhaus and
where she gave painting lessons its protagonists for their own different reasons, and
to children, based on the Stern
and Grete they explored Bauhaus ideas and then presented
Bauhaus foundation course of H or ac io Copolla no s A ire s, 1935
principles developed by Johannes ib iti on po ster, Wor ks
e S ur m ag azine, Bue
Fl or en ce them in very new ways in a transcultural process,
E xh of th la A rchive
s,
Itten. In October 1944 Dicker rial of fic es Ruche, Sca for example within the context of nationalist politics
in the edito M ar a- La
and Brandeis were taken to Jorge
© Galer ia in Santiago de Chile, as an answer to rapid
the German extermination camp
in Auschwitz. Only Brandeis industrialisation in Mexico City, or within postcolonial
survived. movements in Casablanca.
Text: Astrid Volpert
 Berlin 1932–1933
USA, 1925
Blue Four in the
lka Sc he ye r as the Prophet of the na CA , US A
g, Gallery owner
Ga sade
Newspaper cuttin yer Collection, Pa
Four Galka Sche
rto n Sim on Mu seum, The Blue
© No

Ar t School,
e of the New
the magazin
In this second part of the exhibition, the title represents

, published in
a call to scholars to research the Bauhaus in its global
contexts, addressing the different uses of its concepts,

mons
ideas, and procedures around the world. The Whole
World a Bauhaus? thus presents case studies from

Creative Com
ack and white
ber 1928
Buenos Aires, Casablanca, Mexico City, Moscow, Many Bauhaus teachers found
Santiago de Chile, the USA, Stuttgart, and also from
18. Student Ernst Louis Beck in front of the entrance to the
reconstructed telephone factory, 1932 / 1933 work at institutes and universi-
ties throughout the world and
Karlsruhe, whose ZKM I Center for Art and Media

Chile, Septem
carried the idea and the teaching

a, Wor k in bl

len Archive,
stands for the “digital Bauhaus.” This makes it clear of the Bauhaus into the future
that the Bauhaus was not an elitist and exclusive In 1933, Josef Albers was
17. “The Blow against the Bauhaus”,
project, as there were avant-gardes in many parts of photo montage by Iwao Yamawaki prior to
the Nazi seizure of power, 1932
appointed professor at the Black
Mountain College in North
the world that saw themselves as the engines of social,

© David Mau
Marcial Lem
Santiago de
cultural, and political change and thereby understood At the local council in Dessau,
the Nazi Party proposed to
the Bauhaus and integrated it into their own discourses close the Bauhaus and to pull
in their own specific ways. down the school building
Representatives of the Nazi
Valérie Hammerbacher Party visited the Bauhaus
ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)
The council of Dessau decided
to close the Bauhaus as of
1 October 1932
The cities of Leipzig and
Magdeburg, which were
governed by Social Democrats,
showed interest in taking over
the Bauhaus
The municipal authorities of the
town of Dessau transferred all
rights to continue the Bauhaus
as a private institute to Mies
van der Rohe
The Bauhaus was reopened
in a former telephone factory
in the Berlin district of Steglitz
The carnivals on 18 and Carolina (USA). His wife Anni
25 February 1933 with about Albers and Xanti Schawinsky
1,100 visitors were the last were also lecturers there
Bauhaus parties
During a house search on
11 April 1933, the Secret State 20. Logo of the “New Bauhaus” in Chicago, 1937
Police (Gestapo) found evidence
of “cultural Bolshevism”.
In 1937, László Moholy-Nagy
32 people were arrested and
the Bauhaus in Berlin was became the director of a newly
sealed off founded design school in
Chicago (USA), which he called
When the wallpaper company New Bauhaus
Rasch canceled their contract,
the school was deprived of In 1937, Walter Gropius was After 1945, attempts to restore
an important financial basis appointed director of the the Bauhaus in Germany
department of architecture at in Dessau and Weimar failed
In order to continue the the Harvard Graduate School
Bauhaus, the Gestapo demand- of Design in Cambridge / In 1953, the Ulm School of
ed a new “state-conformist” Massachusetts (USA) Design was founded. The
curriculum and the dismissal
19. Josef Albers with students in drawing class, c. 1928 teaching concept directly took
of Wassily Kandinsky and In 1938, Ludwig Mies van der up Bauhaus principles.
Ludwig Hilberseimer From 1933, the Bauhaus Rohe took over the department The former Bauhaus student
building in Dessau was used as of architecture at the Armour Max Bill became the director
On the strength of this, the a school building by the Nazis. Institute in Chicago (USA). and Josef Albers, Walter
teachers decided the dissolution Demolition of the building was Walter Peterhans and Ludwig Peterhans and Johannes Itten
of the Bauhaus on 20 July no longer considered an option Hilberseimer followed him also taught there

The Bauhaus has 25 female The Bauhaus has 5 female

and 90 male students and 14 male students

1932 1933 After the closure of the Bauhaus

The exhibition “Modern Archi- In Germany, Adolf Hitler
tecture: International Exhibition” became Chancellor of the Reich
at the Museum of Modern Art
New York reduced the different During the fourth meeting of
9 the CIAM under the motto of
bat, 201 styles of “Neues Bauen” to
dM elehi, Ra a merely aesthetic dimension. “The Functional City,” members
M o ha m e
tudy N o. 1 after Social questions, function, and approved the “Charter of
c olours, S Athens.” It was later to play
erns and
the different debates were
tu dies, patt thus left aside. Philipp Johnson a key role in the reconstruction
Digital s
A zarzar, and Henry-Russell Hitchcock of the cities after 1945
Nassim z a rz ar
A were responsible for this exhi-
© Nassim
bition. They had also visited the
15. “Decadent Art” exhibition in the gallery building at
Bauhaus in Dessau during the Munich Hofgarten in 1937, with paintings by Wassily
their research in 1930 and 1931 Kandinsky, Emil Nolde, Conrad Felixmüller, Heinrich
Campendonk and others, and sculptures by Marg Moll,
Otto Baum, Eugen Hoffmann, Rudolf Belling and others

From September 1933, the In 1937, 16,000 works of

entire German production of art
and culture was controlled by
the Reich Chamber of Culture
Many artists and intellectuals
went into exile, others were
persecuted or banned from
their profession. Others came
to terms with the repressive
measures of the Nazi regime
14. Exhibition view “Modern Architecture: International Exhibition”,
Museum of Modern Art, New York, 10.2. – 23.3.1932
modern art were seized by the
Nazis and mostly destroyed
In the same year, the Nazi
propaganda exhibition
“Degenerate Art” showed 650
of these works, among them
some Bauhaus artists. Ironically,
the exhibition was the most
frequently visited exhibition
of modern art
16. Catalogue of the exhibition “Cubism and Abstract Art”
On 1 September 1939, the at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2.3. – 19.4.1936,
with a picture by Alfred H. Barr
Second World War started.
It ended on 8 May 1945

In 1936, the Museum of Modern

Art in New York presented
the whole spectrum of the
European avant-garde in the
exhibition “Cubism and Abstract
Art.” Alfred H. Barr was the
curator, and he also purchased
the presented works for the
MoMA. Since 1958, the collection
has been part of the permanent
exhibition

Emmy Wollne
r, Colour plate
© Adolf Hölze s for lectures
l Stiftung, Stut by Professor
tgar t Adolf Hölzel,
Stut tgar t, no date

before 1914
In the middle of the 19th
century, the Arts and Crafts
Movement was formed in
England. Its founder William
Morris opposed industrial
machine production and cham-
pioned the idea of a revival
of the crafts. Skilfully made
everyday objects were intended
to carry art into daily life
The success of the crafts move-
ment led to criticism of the
academic education of artists
with its imitation of historical
styles. There were calls for
reforms and for more practical
relevance
The Belgian architect Henry
van de Velde was appointed
artistic consultant for industry
and applied arts in the grand
duchy of Saxe-Weimar-
Eisenach in 1902
In autumn, he took charge of
the newly established arts and
crafts seminar in Weimar
In Munich, Hermann Obrist and
Wilhelm von Debschitz founded
a private school in 1902,
where design principles were
deduced from nature and then
put into practice in workshops.
Henry van de Velde and Walter
Gropius enquired about this
new teaching method
1. Metal workshop at the Debschitz School,
Munich, c. 1905
From 1906, the painter and art
theoretician Adolf Hölzel taught
his modern theory of colors
and forms. His preliminary
course served as a model for
his student Johannes Itten who
later planned the preliminary
course at the Bauhaus. Oskar
Schlemmer was also one
of Hölzel’s students
2. Adolf Hölzel and his Stuttgart pupils, from
the left: Alfred Wickenburg, Ida Kerkovius,
unknown, Edmund Kinzinger, Hermann
Stenner, Adolf Hölzel, Lily Hildebrandt,
Willi Baumeister, Oskar Schlemmer, 1914
1. Henry van de Velde in his studio at the Weimar Arts and Crafts Seminar, c. 1906
In spring 1908, Henry van de
Velde was assigned head of
the newly founded Grand Ducal
Saxon School of Applied Arts
in Weimar
The practical work in the work-
shops was the most important
aspect of vocational training
The Deutscher Werkbund
(German Association of Crafts-
men) was founded in Munich in
1907 and it brought together the
crafts, art, and industry in a new
art of form. With its exhibitions
and publications, the associa-
tion was a crucial motor for
the distribution of a new design
and aesthetics of products
In the Berlin office of Peter
Behrens, one of the co-founders
of the Werkbund, three major
representatives of the modernist
architecture met in 1908:
Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe, and the young
Le Corbusier
In 1914, the accomplishments of
the Werkbund in product design
and architecture were presented
to an international audience
in Cologne
3. Poster by Fritz Helmuth
Ehmcke on the occasion of the
exhibition “Deutsche Werkbund
Ausstellung” 1914 in Cologne
In the years after 1905, the
avant-garde art forms of futurism
in Italy, cubism in France and
expressionism in Germany
came into being. Expressionism
made an impact on the first
Bauhaus years
4. Herwarth Walden in front of his bust
portrait of William Wauer, c. 1918
Herwarth Walden’s magazine
“Der Sturm” which was founded
in Berlin in 1910, became the
voice of German expressionism
and a center of the European
avant-garde
In 1912, the gallery “Sturm”
opened its doors with an exhi-
bition by the expressionist
artist association “Der Blaue
Reiter” which had been founded
the year before by Wassily
Kandinsky and Franz Marc
in Munich
After Henry van de Velde had
to endure hostilities for being
a foreigner, he resigned from his
position as the director
of the School of Applied Arts
in Weimar and, amongst others,
he recommended the architect
Walter Gropius as his successor
The School of Applied Arts
in Weimar was closed on
1 October 1915
The school building was used
as a hospital during the First
World War – individual work-
shops were run privately
1914–1918 First World War
At the end of July 1914, the
First World War broke out. More
than 60 million young soldiers
were fighting worldwide
In the Netherlands in 1917,
Theo van Doesburg and Piet
Mondrian founded the artists
group “De Stijl”. Their principles
of geometrical-abstract design
had a major influence on the
largely expressionist Bauhaus
in 1921 / 1922
In Vienna, Johannes Itten
opened his first art school in
1917. Through Alma Mahler,
he met her then-husband Walter
Gropius, who later invited Itten
to join the Bauhaus. Some
of his students from Vienna
followed him
In response to the war and
to criticise the bourgeois way
of life, the provocative anti-art
of Dadaism was formed
in Switzerland
In 1915, the Grand Ducal
School of Fine Arts in Weimar
started negotiations with Walter
Gropius
At the beginning of the year
1916, he sent his “proposal to
set up an artistic advice center
for industry, crafts and the
manual trades” to Weimar
Due to the First World War, the
negotiations were suspended
In 1917, after the October
Revolution, a workers’ party
came into power for the first
time in Russia
The monarchy in the German
Empire ended and the
Republic was proclaimed on
8 November 1918
The First World War ended
two days later
5. One-legged war veteran begging in
uniform and with medals, Berlin, 1923
Unemployment, hunger and
social misery determined the
daily life of the German popula-
tion. The destruction caused by
the war exacerbated the housing
shortage, and the country was
in dire need of about 1 million
additional dwellings
After his return from the war
at the beginning of 1919, Walter
Gropius once again contacted
the administrator of the Weimar
Cultural Institutes
The end of the war and hopes
for the new republic inspired
a utopia of rebuilding society.
Reform efforts which had been
interrupted by the war now
gained new strength
6. Flyer by Hermann Max Pechstein for the
Working Council of Art Berlin, 1919
Workers Council for Art, which
had been founded in 1918,
demanded a fundamental reform
of art, culture, and education.
All the arts declared a collective
“Bau” (“building”) to be their
common goal. Bruno Taut,
Lyonel Feininger, Walter Gropius,
and Gerhard Marcks were
among the 50 members
Artists joined forces in the
“November Group” to “dedicate
(their) best abilities in order to
rebuild young free Germany”.
The group existed until 1933.
El Lissitzky, Wassily Kandinsky,
László Moholy-Nagy, and
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
were among its 170 members
Weimar 1919–1925
Walter Gropius was appointed
director of the Grand Ducal
School of Fine Arts in Weimar
He merged the University
of Fine Arts and the School
of Applied Arts to create a new
school of arts
State Bauhaus
Weimar
Date of foundation
1 April 1919
3. Lyonel Feininger’s woodcut “Cathedral”
for the manifesto of the State Bauhaus
Weimar, 1919
Johannes Itten (painter, art
teacher), Gerhard Marcks
(sculptor) and Lyonel Feininger
(graphic designer) were
appointed lecturers at the
Bauhaus
Johannes Itten developed
the preliminary course at the
Bauhaus, which included
elements of the teaching
concept he had tested in Vienna,
as well as the concept of his
teacher Adolf Hölzel in Stuttgart
First meeting of the council
of masters
The Bauhaus has 101 female
and 106 male students
1919
7. Opening sitting of the constitution-drafting
German National Assembly at the German
National Theatre in Weimar on 6 February
1919, Friedrich Ebert speaking
On 6 February, the first elected
German parliament met
In the constitution of the Weimar
Republic, the right to housing
was established for the first
time. Tackling the housing
shortage was one of the biggest
challenges for the young republic
The Treaty of Versailles stipu-
lated that Germany, having lost
the war, had to pay reparations
to the victorious countries
2. Grand Ducal Saxon School of Applied Arts Weimar, c. 1906, from 1919 State Bauhaus Weimar
Georg Muche (painter) was
appointed lecturer at the
Bauhaus
A master of form (artist) and a
master of craft each took charge
of each one of the workshops
Training at the workshops
followed the model of a crafts-
man’s apprenticeship. The final
exam was conducted by the
Chamber of Crafts
The “Haus Sommerfeld” in
Berlin was designed by Gropius’s
office, with the assistance of
the Bauhaus workshops
5. “Haus Sommerfeld”, Berlin, 1920 / 1921
First “Bauhaus Night” with the
poet Else Lasker Schüler
Johannes Itten introduced a
vegetarian diet to the canteen
at the Bauhaus
The Bauhaus has 62 female
and 81 male students
1920
In Moscow, the VChUTEMAS
(Higher Art and Technical
Studios) were founded. Their
structure and curriculum re-
sembled those of the Bauhaus
In Berlin, the Dadaists organized
the “First International DADA
Fair”. Their new aesthetics
of montage of photography
and typography later influenced
the Bauhaus, especially its
advertising
The Hungarian avant-garde
artist László Moholy-Nagy
came to Berlin and met the
Dadaists there
In Petrograd, Wladimir Tatlin’s
design for the “Monument for
the Third International” was
unveiled. The tower made
of glass and steel is considered
to be the birth of constructivism
In Paris, Le Corbusier and
Amedée Ozenfant founded the
magazine “L’Esprit Nouveau”
and disseminated their vision
and rationale of a new machine
aesthetics and art in general
4. Logo of the State
Bauhaus Weimar, 1919–1921
The first official curriculum
came into effect at the Bauhaus
Paul Klee (painter), Oskar
Schlemmer (painter & stage
designer) and Lothar Schreyer
(dramaturge & painter)
were appointed teachers at
the Bauhaus
The professors of the former
University of Fine Arts left
the Bauhaus and established
a rivaling school of arts
(it remained in the same building
until 1925)
The painters of the Bauhaus
staged an exhibition at Herwarth
Walden’s gallery “Der Sturm”
in Berlin
Johannes Itten and Georg
Muche made the teachings of
Mazdaznan the “secret religion”
at the Bauhaus
The Bauhaus has 44 female
and 64 male students
1921
The first installment of the
reparations exacerbated infla-
tion and fueled domestic unrest
in the young Weimar Republic.
About 354,000 people were
unemployed
Adolf Hitler was elected head
of the National Socialist German
Workers’ Party (NSDAP)
Theo van Doesburg propaga-
ted the abstract geometrical
principles of design of the
artists’ association “De Stijl”
in his lectures in Weimar, Jena,
and Berlin
In Russia, Tatlin’s tower ignited
a debate about the principles
of design: composition versus
construction. The principles
of constructivism – scientific
methods and the “truth to
material” – emerged from this
8. Wladimir Tatlin’s model of a monument for
the Third International, 1920
7. The new logo of the State Bauhaus
Weimar by Oskar Schlemmer, 1922
Wassily Kandinsky (painter)
was appointed lecturer at the
Bauhaus
In Calcutta (India), paintings
by the Bauhaus teachers
and students, were exhibited
together with works by contem-
porary Indian artists
In Weimar, Theo van Doesburg
taught private De Stijl courses,
attended by some of the
Bauhaus members
6. Postcard from Theo van Doesburg to
Antony Kok, 12.9.1921
In the council of masters, the
masters discussed whether they
should call themselves profes-
sors and they decided against
The Bauhaus has 48 female
and 71 male students
1922
At the beginning of the year,
a representative of Russian
constructivism, El Lissitzky
came to Berlin and established
contacts with the avant-garde,
such as the Dadaists, Theo
van Doesburg, and László
Moholy-Nagy
In September, Theo van
Doesburg organized the “Inter-
national Congress of Construct-
ivists and Dadaists” in Weimar.
Some of the participants were
Bauhaus members
9. Group photograph taken at
the International Congress of
Constructivists and Dadaists
in Weimar, 1922
8. Poster by Joost Schmidt for the Bauhaus
exhibition in Weimar, 1923
The great “Bauhaus exhibition
and Bauhaus week” opened
in summer with talks, film
screenings, music, and theatre
“Haus am Horn,” designed
by Georg Muche
In his opening speech,
Walter Gropius proclaimed the
programmatic reorganization
of the Bauhaus:
“Art and technology –
a new unity”
Johannes Itten, who opposed
a technical focus and favored
individual craftsmanship, left
the Bauhaus
The Hungarian László Moholy-
Nagy (painter, photographer &
constructivist) was appointed
to teach at the Bauhaus
After his play “Mondspiel”
flopped, Lothar Schreyer left
the Bauhaus
The Bauhaus has 35 female
and 106 male students
1923
10. Emergency money during the hyperin-
flation of 1923, designed by Herbert Bayer
Inflation reached its peak in
autumn and led to the crash
of the German economy and
the banking system. The
number of unemployed people
rose to 978,000
An attempted coup by Adolf
Hitler was foiled. The Nazi Party
was forbidden and Adolf Hitler
was arrested
In his programmatic essay
“Vers une architecture,”
Le Corbusier advocated
a concept for a new kind of
architecture based on five
major principles
The new conservative govern-
ment in Thuringia cut the state
grant for the Bauhaus to a third
The government of Thuringia
terminated the masters’ employ-
ment contracts on 31 March
The “Circle of Friends of the
Bauhaus” was founded with
international supporters including
Marc Chagall, Albert Einstein,
Peter Behrens, and H. P. Berlage
Bauhaus Ltd. was founded
in order to market the products
made in the Bauhaus workshops
In late December, the Bauhaus
masters declared the dissolution
of the Bauhaus by 1 April 1925
Several cities expressed their
interest in taking over the
Bauhaus, including Frankfurt
am Main, Darmstadt, Mannheim,
and Dessau
The Bauhaus has 45 female
and 82 male students
1924
The Dawes Plan reduced the
reparations, and with loans from
abroad, the German economy
leveled off. The short heyday
of the roaring twenties started
The Swiss avant-garde group
ABC with Hannes Meyer,
the Dutch Mart Stam and
El Lissitzky declared the
function to be the basis of all
design. Meyer introduced
this approach to the teaching
at the Bauhaus from 1927
During the building boom, many
ideas of “Neues Bauen” were
realized, particularly in cities
run by Social Democrats, such
as Berlin, Frankfurt am Main
and Dessau
Dessau 1925–1931

The construction department at

the Bauhaus realized the ADGB
Trade Union School in Bernau
near Berlin. All the Bauhaus
workshops participated in this
project

12. Bauhaus building in Dessau, 1926 / 1927

10. Logo “The Bauhaus in Dessau”
as a stamp, 1931
The masters’ houses and parts
of the Törten estate in Dessau
were completed
The Bauhaus increasingly coop-
erated with industry. Some of
the most successful products
were the Bauhaus wallpaper
The first architecture course and the Bauhaus lamps
was set up at the Bauhaus
“Metallic Party” at the Bauhaus
Free painting classes
15. View of the living quarters wing of the ADGB Trade Union
School in Bernau by Hannes Meyer and Hans Wittwer, 1931
A communist student group,
which had become radicalized,
began to politicize the Bauhaus
Walter Gropius Hannes Meyer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Due to his Marxist politics,
Hannes Meyer was dismissed

1920

1922

1923

1924

1925

1926

1927

1928

1929

1930

1932

1933
1921
1919

1931
Summer
Semester
were offered by Paul Klee Hannes Meyer reorganized the
without notice by the town

new timetable and teaching

The Bauhaus was officially and Wassily Kandinsky to curriculum and the workshops
of Dessau at the beginning

plan enters into force

recognized as a university of complement the more practical Walter Gropius resigned as The first photography course of August
arts and design and was permit- and manual training in the

enters into force

enters into force

enters into force

enters into force

the director of the Bauhaus was set up at the Bauhaus

second statute

fourth statute
ted to issue its own certificates workshops Only a few days later, Ludwig

third statute
on 4 February 1928 to dedicate

first statute
9. Prospectus of the city of Dessau, 1931 Mies van der Rohe became
himself to his work as a free- The Bauhaus touring exhibition
The masters of form were The pioneer of expressive started in Basel with current the new director of the Bauhaus
called professors and the dance, Gret Palucca, performed lance architect
The Bauhaus moved to the works from the Bauhaus and reorganized the curriculum
training course ended with onstage at the Bauhaus Hannes Meyer became the workshops
industrial town of Dessau near Preliminary Foundation
a Bauhaus diploma new director of the Bauhaus A new statute prohibited all class 1st semester 2nd semester Course 2nd semester 1st semester Work theory no longer compulsory
Berlin Works from the Bauhaus kinds of political involvement
on 1 April 1928 and announced Trial semester Johannes Itten Johannes Itten & Georg Muche László Moholy-Nagy & Josef Albers László Moholy-Nagy & Josef Albers Josef Albers Josef Albers

Gerhard Marcks left the Bauhaus his motto: workshops were sent to the at the Bauhaus Direct advancement to higher semester possible

World Fair in Barcelona Pottery Building Building

Tuition started at various “The needs Gerhard Marcks theory department
Hannes Meyer Hannes Meyer & Hannes Meyer, Hans Wittwer
temporary locations of the people instead of Paul Klee left the Bauhaus. He Max Krehan
Hans Wittwer & Ludwig Hilberseimer
the need for luxury” continued to live in his master’s Glass painting
A new statute and an updated house in Dessau until 1933 Johannes Itten Oskar Schlemmer Paul Klee
curriculum came into effect Marcel Breuer, László Moholy- Carl Schlemmer J. Albers
Glass and
wall painting
Nagy, and Herbert Bayer left the Gunta Stölzl left the Bauhaus
Several former students Wall painting Josef Albers (acting)
Wall painting Department for building
11. The masters on the Bauhaus roof, from Bauhaus with Gropius Johannes Itten O. Schlemmer Wassily Kandinsky Hinnerk Scheper and fitting-out
became junior masters and took the left: Josef Albers, Hinnerk Scheper, The last issue of the magazine Franz Heidelmann Carl Schlemmer Heinrich Beberniss
Fitting-out
Mies van der Rohe & Ludwig Hilberseimer
over some of the workshops Georg Muche, László Moholy-Nagy, An increasing number of “bauhaus” was published department
Herbert Bayer, Joost Schmidt, Walter Alfred Arndt Hinnerk Scheper
Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Wassily Kandinsky, 13. Collage by Marianne Brandt for external lecturers were invited Carpentry shop Furniture workshop
The first series of Bauhaus Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Gunta Stölzl “Palucca Dances”, 1929
to lecture at the Bauhaus The first Bauhaus exhibition Johannes Itten Walter Gropius Marcel Breuer & Heinrich Bökenheide Josef Albers Alfred Arndt & Heinrich Bökenheide Lilly Reich
Josef Zachmann Erich Reinhold Weidensee
books was published by and Oskar Schlemmer, photographed 14. Manda von Kreibig in Oskar Schlemmer’s in the USA was shown in Brendel
Alfred Arndt Lilly Reich
by Lucia Moholy, 1926 “Stäbetanz II”, Bauhaus stage, 1927
Walter Gropius and László Georg Muche left the Bauhaus Physical education was New York Metals department at the School of Arts and Crafts Metals
Moholy-Nagy introduced at the Bauhaus Johannes Itten Paul Klee Oskar Schlemmer László Moholy-Nagy Marianne Brandt
The Bauhaus building in Dessau Students of the Moscow In Moscow, Hannes Meyer orga- to 1915 Naum Slutzky Christian Dell (acting)
The use of all-lowercase was opened on 4 December VChUTEMAS visited the Members of the Bauhaus visited The Bauhaus Stage gave guest 16. Caricature of Hannes Meyer, 1930 nized the exhibition “bauhaus
Graphic design department at the Academy of Arts Graphic printing shop Department for advertising
was introduced 1926 with over 1,000 German Bauhaus in summer the VChUTEMAS in Moscow performances in Berlin, Breslau, dessau 1928–1930” as a private Walter Klemm Lyonel Feininger Joost Schmidt post not
and international guests Frankfurt am Main, Stuttgart, initiative Walter Klemm (from 1913) Carl Zaubitzer filled
The “Catalogue of Models” Alfred H. Barr, who was later Wassily Kandinsky staged and Basel Hannes Meyer went to Moscow. Printing and Advertising
presented different prototypes The Bauhaus published the to become the founding director Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an A group of Bauhaus members The American composer Henry Printing workshop advertising department
Bookbinding workshop at the School of Arts and Crafts Bookbinding Paul Klee L. Schreyer Herbert Bayer & Willi Hauswald Joost Schmidt & Willi Hauswald
Department for photography
from the Bauhaus workshops first issue of the magazine of the Museum of Modern Art Exhibition” at the Friedrich Oskar Schlemmer left the followed him in spring the Cowell gave several concerts Otto Dorfner Contract with the Bauhaus terminated
to be marketed by Bauhaus Ltd. “bauhaus” in New York, visited the Bauhaus theatre in Dessau Bauhaus following year at the Bauhaus Otto Dorfner (from 1910 / as a private business from 1915)
Photo class Walter Peterhans Walter Peterhans

Sculpture class at the Academy of Arts Wood sculpture

Richard Engelmann Georg Muche J. Itten Oskar Schlemmer
Richard Engelmann (from 1906) Hans Kämpfe Josef Hartwig Sculpture workshop Fine arts
The Bauhaus has 28 female The Bauhaus has 58 female The Bauhaus has 44 female Joost Schmidt
The Bauhaus has 28 female The Bauhaus has 41 female and The Bauhaus has 45 female The Bauhaus has 53 female
Sculpture class at the Academy of Arts Stone sculpture Joost Schmidt
and 73 male students and 73 male students 125 male students and 121 male students and 143 male students and 122 male students and 141 male students Richard Engelmann Johannes Itten Oskar Schlemmer
Richard Engelmann (from 1906) Max Kull Josef Hartwig Free painting classes Wassily Kandinsky & Wassily
Lyonel Feininger Kandinsky

1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931

Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky & Lyonel Feininger

Stage Experimental department for stage performances

Lothar Schreyer Oskar Schlemmer
Coordination: Joost Schmidt & Emil Galandi

Weaving Weaving Textiles Weaving

In Frankfurt am Main, 15,000
new flats were built in an
industrial construction style
workshop workshop department workshop
Johannes Itten founded a In Switzerland, 24 international Walter Gropius took responsi- The withdrawal of American Weaving workshop at the School of Arts and Crafts Johannes Itten Georg Muche Georg Muche & Gunta Stölzl Gunta Stölzl & Kurt Wanke A. Albers Lilly Reich
Helene Börner (acting)
private art school in Berlin, representatives of “Neues bility for the “Séction allemande” loans triggered another banking Helene Börner (from 1907 / as a private business from 1915)
where Georg Muche and Lucia Bauen” joined together to on behalf of the German crisis in Germany. The number Dyeing workshop Lis Beyer & Kurt Wanke Margarete Leischner

and according to new minimal Moholy later worked as lecturers become the “Congrès Interna- Werkbund at the arts and crafts of unemployed people exceeded
Legend
standards in very few years. tionaux d’Architecture Moderne” fair in the Grand Palais Paris 5 million

Semester
In Weimar, the “State Technical

Summer
Several Bauhaus members were (CIAM). The joint program Development phase for a workshop / course

Closure
also involved in the housing University of Architecture and was mainly prepared by At the third CIAM meeting When the “German Building

1920

1922

1923

1924

1925

1926

1927

1928

1929

1930

1932

1933
1921
1919

1931
Continuing workshop (as far as known)
program “Neues Frankfurt” Civil Engineering” was founded. Le Corbusier – Hannes Meyer in Brussels, the participants Exhibition” and the “Proletarian
Bauhaus members, such as and Mart Stam added a social discussed “efficient building” Building Exhibition” were both Workshop form master

In Mannheim, an exhibition
presented the art of “New
Objectivity.” Photography
at the Bauhaus was influenced
by this new objective view of
social reality
11. Title image for the magazine “Das neue Frankfurt”, no 2,
1926 / 1927, theme: mechanisation of apartment building / From
brick walls to the Frankfurt montage procedure
Ernst Neufert, Otto Lindig,
Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, and
others taught there
Leading representatives of
“Neues Bauen” joined together
as “Der Ring”. Among them
were Walter Gropius, Ludwig
Mies van der Rohe, and Ludwig
Hilberseimer
12. Poster by Willi Baumeister for the
Werkbund exhibition “Die Wohnung” in
1927 in Stuttgart
16 international items classified
as “Neues Bauen und Wohnen”
were built as part of the
Werkbund exhibition at the
Weissenhof in Stuttgart. The
project was directed by Ludwig
Mies van der Rohe. Among the
architects were Le Corbusier,
Mart Stam, Walter Gropius,
Peter Behrens, and Bruno Taut
component to it. This “Sarraz
Declaration” by the CIAM was
also published in the magazine
“bauhaus”
In opposition to “Neues Bauen,”
national-conservative architects
founded the association “Der
Block.” One of its spokesmen
was Paul Schultze-Naumburg,
who was later substantially
involved in the closure of the
Bauhaus in Dessau
in housing development taking place in Berlin, two oppo- Workshop work master (as far as known)
site positions faced each other:
In the elections for the Reichstag, rationalizing building versus
Not part of the regular teaching syllabus Weimar Dessau Berlin
the Nazis came second after
solving the housing shortage
the Social Democrats (SPD)
13. Advertisement for the Werkbund exhibi-
tion “Film and Foto” in 1929 in Stuttgart
The international Werkbund
exhibition “Film und Foto” in
The Bauhaus workshops
Stuttgart presented the works
of 200 international artists, This diagram visualises the development of the
among them several Bauhaus Bauhaus workshops under the three directors
members, Karl Blossfeldt
and Man Ray Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer and Ludwig
The New York stock market
Mies van der Rohe at the three Bauhaus
crash on 24 October 1929 locations in Weimar, Dessau and Berlin. The
led to the Great Depression work of the specialist form and work masters
During the second CIAM is presented chronologically, showing frequent
meeting in Frankfurt am Main,
the focus was on the solution of changes and renaming of the workshops and
the housing problem. 120 archi- the different focus of Bauhaus teaching under
tects and scientists from
14 countries discussed strat- the three directors.
egies for “the dwelling for the
subsistence level” Nicole Opel
In New York, the Museum
of Modern Art opened as one
of the first museums for modern
art in America
Mies van der Rohe designed
the German Pavillion for
the World Fair in Barcelona

Designing and Coding
In the twentieth century, the categories of art
and aesthetics were replaced by the category of
design. Prior to 1900, art universities were called
Academies of Fine Arts, but thereafter just
Academies of Arts, as the “no longer only fine
arts” (Hans Robert Jauß, 1968) came to the
fore in the twentieth century. Far-reaching
Piet Mondrian, New Design, (Bau
change after the First World War led to a whole
haus books 5), Munich, 1925 generation radically searching for a new order.
Title page design Moholy-Nagy
On the one hand, the elements of painting
were subjected to scrutiny. Painting’s means of
depiction – the point, the line, the plane – were
formerly used to create representations of real
objects, but now they themselves became
the subject of painting. Self-representation of the
means of representation led to abstract painting,
which had a strong following at the Bauhaus
with Johannes Itten, Wassily Kandinsky, and
Paul Klee. The world of objects was also seen
to represent itself in the pieces and ready-mades
by Marcel Duchamp. A third direction that was
specifically developed in, at, and around the
Bauhaus, attempted to overcome the gulf between
the figurative and the abstract by postulating
universal principles of design for both the making
of the world of the objects and the autonomous
world of artistic representation.
In both theory and practice, the introduction of the
concept of design at the Bauhaus was a way of
gaining distance from the idea of aesthetics. The
Bauhaus school stood for a historical break with
art’s aspirations to represent reality. “Universal
principles of design” were introduced, which could
be implemented functionally in all the genres,
whether painting and sculpture or the crafts and
architecture. The principles for the design of a
plane were the same as those for the design of
a room. Paintings, objects for everyday use, and
buildings all followed the same visual patterns of
ted
18, pain
an after 19 lines and colours. Artists hoped that the principle
roenek
an de G of design would contribute to a better world, and
e b y G erard v a a g
ad H
918, m um Den Bild -Kunst the tone was set in the De Stijl manifesto of 1921,
ir, c a. 1 temuse
23
Walker, 19
Tightrope
Paul K lee,
The themes of suspension and floating
featured at the Bauhaus in various guises
– as motifs in architecture and fine art, and
as a metaphor for a modern way of life.
In 1926 Marcel Breuer demonstrated the
design of his chairs in his collage “A
Bauhaus Film,” beginning with the “African
Chair,” made at the Bauhaus in 1921. The
series of designs culminated in a vision
of a seated person floating on an “elastic
column of air” – Breuer left the actual
date when this might become reality open.
Furniture made of steel tubing, like Breuer’s
and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s
cantilever chairs, are also signs of this
desire to overcome material restrictions.
After the Bauhaus reopened in Dessau in
1926, students and masters began to take
photographs that either showed floating
people or objects or presented them as if
they were about to take off. In his lithograph
“The Tightrope Walker,” Paul Klee had
already addressed this theme back in 1923.
The figure of the tightrope walker stands
for a future and more modern type of man,
whose longing to escape gravity takes him Umbo (Otto Umbehr), Slippers, 1
926
into heady heights, and who yet still needs
a rope under his feet and a pole for balance.
F
Mies van der Rohe’s design for a “Skyscraper in Glass and Reinforced
Concrete” also negated all sense of weight, and the transparency of the
construction gave the impression that it was about to dissolve. The same
L
O
effect is true of the Dessau Bauhaus building designed by Walter Gropius,
particularly when it is lit up at night. In 1923 Gropius noted: “The increasing
stability and greater mass of modern building materials (iron, concrete,
glass) and the increasing boldness of new suspended constructions mean
that the sense of gravity that pertained to older ways of building is now
being transformed.” In the Dessau Bauhaus building, there were always a
A
number of “suspended sculptures“ on show, made by students in Moholy-
Nagy’s Foundation Course, which the teacher saw as valuable preliminaries
towards “a highly spiritual form,“ and specifically “kinetic sculptures.”
T
I

N
d B lue Cha m , G emeen Rietveld © VG
ietveld,
Re d a n
7.5 × 6 0
× 76 c
H aa g, G
err it Towards a Newly Shaped World, followed by
Gerr it R d, ply wood, 8 museum Den a number of Bauhaus publications: New Design
w o o e n te
beec h G eme
graph: (Piet Mondrian, Bauhaus Book, vol. 5, 1925) and
© Photo
Basic Concepts of New Design Art (Theo van
Doesburg, Bauhaus Book, vol. 6, 1925). From now
on new art schools in Germany began to call
G
themselves Universities of Design (Hochschulen
n
eentemu 3, rec onstr uctio
n H aa g,

für Gestaltung), and in the English-speaking world

they were Institutes of Design.
seum D e

A hundred years later, the situation has changed

for art and art schools. The concepts of material eliminar y
2

of glass, Pr
rtiste, 19

af t made
and machine were key to the Bauhaus and its struction dr
ollein, Con
Edmund C lb er s 19 27 / 28
design principles. Today, the art world is focusing

Le o
Josef A
Course with
aison d’a

on the concepts of media and data. The decisive

Bar
c m, G e m

design instruments for links between art and

o n,
G er
technology are now data and codes. At the ZKM
y foil, wo Model for the M

T. Lux Feininger, Eury thmic s, 192

7

tr ud
60 × 60

this transformation is accompanied by exhibitions

and our own productions. This is why the

H er
ZKM has also been called the “digital Bauhaus.”

old
o d, 6 0 ×

on t
Peter Weibel
,
Eesteren

he r
D en H aa

Artistic-scientific chairman, CEO

o of
of t h
lius van
ne, stick
museum

eB
auh
19 83, Ple oesburg, Corne

aus
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emeente

buil
din g
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graph: G

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© Photo

au, 1
929
Karin Sander, XML-SVG CODE / source code of the exhibition space, 2010/2017,
Oracal 638, plotter foil matte, 3-colours, view of the ZKM exhibition Open Codes
© ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Karin Sander © VG Bild-Kunst
Photo: Jonas Zillus

R o h e, A
an der
Mies v
Kur t S e Stage W
from
Ludwig
th
chmid
t, Con kshop, 192
or
str ucti
Hin(rich) Bredendieck
on for
Industrial designer and teacher
3 9 June 1904 in Aurich / German
firewo
Empire – 1 September 1995 in
Roswell / USA
r ks ,
Bredendieck was born into a
family of merchants with many
children. He did an apprenticeship
F N
as a carpenter and after gradu-
ating in 1922 he worked in a
furniture factory. He only briefly
attended the arts and crafts
academies in Stuttgart and
L
Hamburg. In April 1927 he regis-
tered as a Bauhaus student,
where he first studied under
Albers, Kandinsky, Klee, and
O
Moholy-Nagy. In 1928 he began
to work in the metals workshop.
He managed the cooperation
with the Leipzig lamp company
A
Körting & Mathiesen AG
(Kandem), which massproduced
Bauhaus models. Bredendieck
designed reading lamps for
T
desks and bedsides, and also
for ceiling and household lamps
(with Marianne Brandt). After
graduating in 1930 he worked in
I Walter Gropius, László Moholy-Na
N E
G Bauhaus products also found their way around the
Joost Schmidt, Folder
for the City of Dessau
, 1931
27– 32
5 3 4, 19
rmch air M R
Berlin in Moholy-Nagy’s studio
and in the Dorland advertising
agency under Herbert Bayer.
In 1934 he designed furniture in
Oldenburg with Hermann Gautel.
After marrying the American
Bauhaus student Virginia
Weisshaus (1904–88) he emi-
grated to the USA in 1937.
Gropius appointed him to the
Chicago New Bauhaus, where
he headed the foundation
course and the wood and metals
workshop. After the school was
closed, he worked as a designer
of furniture, wooden toys, machines,
and special tools. In 1945 he
began to teach at the Chicago
Institute of Design, at the same
time also designing DIY furniture
together with Nathan Lerner.
From 1952 to 1971 Bredendieck
was the professor of industrial
design at the Georgia Institute
of Technology in Atlanta. His
writing on the theory of design
are documents of his focus on
function and the appropriate use
of materials.
Text: Astrid Volpert
Many international artists and intellectuals also visited
the Bauhaus, among them Solomon Guggenheim and
Marcel Duchamp. Some of these guests came to
hold lectures or teach, like the composers Béla Bartók
and Henry Cowell, Sufi master Murschid Inayat Khan,
or Naum Gabo and El Lissitzky. As these visits show,
the Bauhaus was open to the world, with a crosscultural
awareness that always shaped teaching and work,
and which was not restricted to a “cult of India” and
“Americanism,” as Oskar Schlemmer noted in 1921.
Iwao Yamawaki, Article on the photo
collages of Kurt Kranz, Koga Journ
vol. 2, 1933 al, 12,
From the very beginning the Bauhaus wanted its work
to be seen outside Germany, not least in order to attract
students from all over the world. With this in mind,
in 1920 Walter Gropius wrote letters to Japan, Mexico,
E
Iwao Yamawaki, Article on the photo
Turkey, Brazil, Peru and Chile, praising the fact that vol. 2, 1933
collages of Kurt Kranz, Koga Journ
al, 12,
the Bauhaus was known “beyond Germany’s borders”
and that its “many artists from many countries (…) had
international renown.” Gropius’s endeavours were
continued by his successor, Swiss architect Hannes
Meyer, who invited prospective students to come to
C
the Bauhaus in several languages in the Bauhaus’s own
magazine. In 1929 there were 140 German students
and 30 foreigners, from Poland, Russia, Lithuania, The
O
Netherlands, the USA, Palestine, Turkey, Persia and
Japan. Weaver Gunta Stölzl later wrote: “The international
student body promoted cooperative learning among
U
comrades.” Some of these students were to take the
Bauhaus idea around the world, participating in
international architecture tenders and founding their own
N
institutes. Examples are the Hungarian Sándor Bortnyk,
who established the “Mühely” – the “little Bauhaus” – in
1928 in Budapest, and Renshichirō Kawakita, cofounder
1932 of the Japanese “Institute for Life Design.”
“International Architecture,” Bauh
gy (editors)
aus books, 1, 1925 T
world right from the start. In 1922 there were sales
R
S
outlets in Vienna, Amsterdam, Leicester, and the USA,
offering items from the Bauhaus workshops. The
Bauhaus also showed its work in exhibitions all over
the world, including a presentation in 1922 with pictures
by masters and students in Calcutta, together with
contemporary Indian painters. In 1929 there was
a touring exhibition of Bauhaus work, shown in Basel,
Zurich, Breslau and other cities. In the same year
works from the Bauhaus workshops were shown at
the World’s Fair in Barcelona, and in 1930 there was
a touring exhibition in the USA (Harvard, Cambridge
and New York). In 1931 Hannes Meyer presented the
first Bauhaus exhibition in Moscow, which focused
927
on the years 1928–30, when he had been director.
ir
books, 11, 1
rs), “Kasim
Nagy (edito
,” Bauhaus
tless Wor ld
ló Moholy-
In the “Bauhaus books” published between 1925 and
pius, Lász
The Objec
1930, the Bauhaus was not only able to gain international
artists and architects as authors. These books also
showcased the Bauhaus as a focal point for the vanguard
Walter Gro
Malevich.
of the avant-garde, as clearly seen in the 1923 portfolio
“New European Prints, 4th Portfolio – Italian and Russian
Artists” and in the “Exhibition of International Architects”
that was part of the Bauhaus Exhibition in the same year.
When he became Bauhaus director in Dessau, Mies van
der Rohe wrote a letter to America trying to acquire
“international” partner institutes with which the Bauhaus
could cooperate across borders.
 Frit z Kuhr, Self-portra
it, 1927

O. Z. Hanish, David Ammann, Masd

asnan – Breathing Lessons, 1919
Richard
Oelze, S
elf-portra

T
it with G
ir lfriend, 1
92 2 / 23

E
H
Moscow with Peter Bücking, Gunta Stölzl,
Unknown Photographer, Bauhaus members visiting Vchutein in
Mordwino w, behind Arieh Sharon, 3rd from the right, 12.5 .1928
Arkadij

N Iwao Yamawaki Nakada (1888–70). In 1928 against the Dessau Bauhaus

E
(born as Iwao Fujita) he married Michiko Yamawaki was at its height, Iwao made his
Japanese photographer, (1910–2000), the heir of a rich collage The Attack on It was the aura of a radical new start,

C
architect and university lecturer businessman. He agreed to the Bauhaus. Yamawaki taught particularly after the First World War, that
Hannes Meyer, (editor), “study at take on her family name, and in at the Tokyo Shinkenchiku kōgei
the bauhaus!” bauhaus, journal
for design, 2 / 3, 1928
29 April 1898 in Nagasaki / Japan
return was able to fulfil his dream institute, known as the Japanese
people at the Bauhaus embraced from the
– 8 March 1987 in Tokyo / Japan
of studying at the Bauhaus. In Bauhaus. He built his own outset, and that particularly attracted the

O Yamawaki studied at the Tokyo

autumn 1930 the Yamawakis house, drawing on Gropius’s young. They not only wanted to give a new
came to Dessau and took the master’s houses designs, filled
School of Fine Arts (1921–26) foundation course with Josef it with furniture from Germany, shape to the world tomorrow, but also to their

N
and then gained professional Albers. In April 1931 Michiko such as Breuer’s Wassily own lives. Bauhaus members quickly got
experience as an architect with joined the weaving workshop Armchair. In 1939 he designed a reputation for unconventionality, which

U
the Yokogawa Construction and Iwao moved to study under interiors for the Japanese
Company. At the same time, he Walter Peterhans. Yamawaki‘s Pavilion at the New York World’s included their bob hairstyles and the relaxed
The goal of work at the Bauhaus was to make contemporary

was working as a photographer
for Society for Architecture
photographs of the Bauhaus
complex and also of buildings in
Fair. In 1954 and again in 1971
Iwao and Michiko brought
Oskar Schlemm
E
relations between men and women, and
also the fact that some Bauhaus families products for a new and future generation. For art critic Adolf

N
Research. He was also
interested in theatre. Together
Berlin, Amsterdam and Moscow Bauhaus exhibitions to Japan.
were living together without being married. Behne, this was evident in the architecture of Walter Gropius’s
are in the style of the New In 1995 Michiko published her
with Senda Koreya (1904–94) Bauhaus building: “Here in the new Dessau Bauhaus building

W
Seeing movement founded by book The Bauhaus and the Tea
he founded the Ningyō-za and Moholy-Nagy. Yamawaki was a Ceremony. As early as May 1919, when the Bauhaus we see a striking and pure expression (…) of the fact that

T
was a member of Tan ́ i Sanka,
a group of avant-garde artists.
There he met the Weimar
Bauhaus student Sadanosuke
close friend of Kurt Kranz, who
introduced him to the techniques
of photomontage. In 1932,
when radical right-wing intrigue
er, Schematic ov
Text: Astrid Volpert had only been open for just a few weeks, a new type of man and a new relationship to the world is both
painter and Bauhaus master Lyonel Feininger the starting point and the aim of this new movement in
wrote to his wife Julia: “What I have seen architecture. New materials, new forms of construction, and

E
from the students thus far looks very self- new technologies are important and must be discussed, tried
assured. Nearly all of them were soldiers out, and observed. But they are only a means to an end, and

erview of teaching
M
during the war. This is a completely new kind the highest end is man himself.”

R
of person. I think they all want to create
something new in art and are no longer so

A
timid and harmless.” And Oskar Schlemmer
declared in 1921 “that the Bauhaus is ‘building’

in the subject “M
in a very different sense than expected

N
– building people. Gropius seems to be very
aware of this, and he notes the weaknesses
of the academies here, where educating

an,” from bauhau

people to be people is neglected.” But what
this new man might actually look like, and
which values and capabilities he would have,
was the subject of controversy throughout
the entire Bauhaus period. Johannes Itten,

s. journal for desig

for example, thought that breathing and
921

physical exercises and a vegetarian diet must

Jena, 1

promote individual self-awareness, while

Oskar Schlemmer focused on theatre, in
K han in

which the relationship of every character to

n 2 / 3, 1928
space was to be explored beyond the level
of a “typical body.” There was also painting
Inayat

and photography, where abstraction,

Hazrat

distortion and collage were leading to new

images of humanity, and the “communist
urshid

faction” of students in favour of a “world

revolution” under director Hannes Meyer,
-M

who saw himself as a “scientific Marxist.”

ff, Pi- o

Unknown Photographer, Barbara

Josephine Guggenheim, Wassily
in the garden of the Dessau mast Kandinsky, Hilla von Rebay, Solo
ers’ houses settlement, 1929 mon R. Guggenheim
Bischo
A lfred

T
H
E
N
E From the moment it was founded, the
W students – especially by conservatives
M
A
N
Herbert Bayer, The Model Bauh
Grit Kallin-Fischer,
nee Margit Vries
Painter, graphic designer,
sculptor
26 April 1896 in Frankfurt am
Main / German Empire –
17 July 1973 in Newtown / USA
Grit’s Bauhaus period was a
short interlude during which she
managed to write history – with
just the few works she created.
She grew up in Belgian boarding
schools, and in 1911 she took
painting lessons with Karl
Doerbecker in Marburg. From
1915 to 1917 she studied with
Lovis Corinth. In 1918–19 she
endeavored to gain contact with
Berlin artist’s circles, and in 1920
she married the Russian Jewish
musician and emigrant Marik
Kallin, and both moved to live
with his family in London. When
aus Man, 1923
she returned to Germany in
1926, she was divorced. Wishing
to gain further education, she
went to the Dessau Bauhaus
and by 1928 she had finished the
foundation course and studied in
the metal and stage workshops.
Together with the dancer Manda
von Kreibig (1901–89) and
Oskar Schlemmer she designed
stage costumes and sets. She
had a very striking talent for
photography. In the style of New
Seeing she took photo portraits
of Bauhaus fellow students and
teachers, using fragmented
pictorial spaces. She also
made self-portraits with their
own special form and energy,
in which she depicted herself
as a solitary figure isolated
from the outside world. Within
a perfect setting consisting of
clothing, location, and a cool
melancholy, she symbolized
herself as an emancipated
woman. From 1928 to 1934
she was back in Berlin, taking
photos for the Gebrauchsgrafik
magazine. In 1931 she took
part in the Foreign Advertising
Photography exhibition in New
York. In Dessau, she met the
American Bauhaus student
Edward L. Fischer (1903–88). In
1934 they married and moved
to New York. From 1937 they
lived in their own house that had
been designed by Gropius and
Breuer. In 1947 Grit was back
in Europe, and in Zurich and
Milan she refreshed her interest
in sculptural forms in art, and
worked on projects with the
sculptors Hermann Hubacher
and Mario Marini.
Text: Astrid Volpert
Lis
be
Johannes Itten,
be led astray by
portfolio, “Master
th
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at t
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“Greeting and he
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the hopes of a he
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ial
, 1
93
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alth to the hearts
aven or the fear
uhauses in Weim
of a hell. O. Z. Ha
that are illumina
ar,” 1921
ted by the light of
nish,” original fro
m the first Bauhau
love and cannot
s
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I
Bauhaus was criticised for its focus on ing sample, 1926
–31
mere experiment, for both masters and (at tributed), Weav
Grete Reichardt
M
in government and society. The whole
Bauhaus was just one big experiment, Horacio Coppola then traveled to Buenos Aires.
they said. While these critics wished to Graphic designer and In 1935 their work was
E
photographer presented together by Sur,
discredit the Bauhaus, experimentation a literary magazine for
31 July 1906 in Buenos
was in fact a very deliberate and
Aires / Argentina – 18 June 2012 Argentinian intellectuals – the
significant principle at the Bauhaus, in Buenos Aires / Argentina “first exhibition of modern
photography in Argentina” (Luis
N
where it went far beyond teaching and Priamo). Enjoying their success,
theory. Bauhaus people were very Coppola was the son of Italian the Coppolas decided in 1936 to
immigrants, and in the 1920s
sure that the new approaches that they he studied modern languages,
live in Buenos Aires, and they
opened an avantgarde studio
were keenly looking for after the world
T
At the large Bauhaus Exhibition in 1923, photography, and film. He specializing in advertising. From
war could only be explored in a spirit of the institution presented its experiments traveled through Europe, and in 1940 they lived in Ramos Mejía,
Germany, in 1932 and 1933 he a village in Buenos Aires
experimentation. This was not meant in a very diverse overview, including sat in on a Bauhaus class given province. Their Bauhaus-style
as scientific experiment, but as a free a built “experimental house” that was by Walter Peterhans, thanks to house became a meeting place
and playful testing of ideas, as all the a technological, ecological and living
the recommendation of Grete for Argentinians and emigrant
Stern. His most important work opponents of the war. Together
students in the Foundation Course experiment all at the same time, and done there consisted of eighteen they documented indigenous
were to discover. But because experi- the “Reflectory Light Games” by the architectural studies in a ceramics for the La Plata
mentation frequently led to very students Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack and
geometrical and rational style. anthropology museum. In 1943
In Berlin Coppola and Walter they separated. Horacio
practical problems in the teaching of Kurt Schwerdtfeger. Auerbach together made the returned to Buenos Aires. In the
specific skills in the workshops, in late experimental film Dream (1933). 1960s and 1970s, he discovered
1921 Gropius planned a specific space When the Bauhaus moved to Dessau He met Auerbach’s sister Ellen color photography. In 1984
in 1925, the workshops were renamed and her friend Grete Stern the retrospective show My
dedicated to experimenting, “since it (1904–99). Both were Jews and Photography presented more
is practically very difficult to unite both “laboratory workshops,” and the use of both briefly attended the Bauhaus, than fifty years of work. It took
purely experimental work and the lower case in all letters, brochures and they ran the ringl+pit photo place in a cultural center on
studio. When Stern fled the Plaza Dorrego, where Coppola
implementation of real works in one and the Bauhaus’s own magazine was had once begun to take photos
Nazis to Paris in 1935 and then
and the same workshop.” introduced – a decision which was heavily moved on to London, Coppola of amateur painters and tango
criticised in bourgeois circles. This followed her. His 16 mm films dancers. Asked about the future
about both capital cities, Les of photography, Coppola
then gave Gropius good reason to Quais de la Seine and A Sunday answered, “There isn’t much
again note the principally experimental in Hampstead Heath, focus equipment needed … The mind
character of the Bauhaus: “the bauhaus on the dynamics of light and and the eye are what matter.”
movement. Auerbach and Text: Astrid Volpert
is primarily an experimental institute for Coppola married in London and
the whole country, in all fields of design.
it is also not only our right but certainly
our duty to continue to test things that
have not yet been tested.”
In Dessau Marcel Breuer experimented with furniture made of curved steel
piping, while Oskar Schlemmer finally had a dedicated “experimental theatre” in
O skar S
the Bauhaus building. Then there was photography – in no other field was there
chlemm
er, Sea
ted figu
so much experimentation outside of class than with the camera and film devel-
re, Figu
re “S ”, 1
923
oping techniques, particularly thanks to the use of the compact camera. Werner
David Feist, who began his studies at the Bauhaus in 1927, looked back:
“Experimenting, testing the limits, breaking rules and regulations, discovering
new fields – this was the overarching spirit at the Bauhaus.”
 Chronology top images
1. Louis Held, Henry van de Velde in seinem
Arbeitsraum der Kunstgewerbeschule Weimar,
um 1906. © Fotoatelier Louis Held, Stefan
Renno, Weimar.
2. Louis Held, Großherzoglich Sächsische
Hochschule für bildende Kunst Weimar, von
1919–1925 Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar, um
1906. Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
3. Lyonel Feininger, Titelholzschnitt
„Kathedrale“, Manifest des Staatlichen
Bauhauses in Weimar, 1919. © VG Bild-Kunst,
Bonn 2018
4. Karl Peter Röhl, Entwurf zum Signet
„Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar“, 1919–1921.
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin / © Karl-Peter-Röhl-
Stiftung, Weimar
5. Walter Gropius, Adolf Meyer und andere
Bauhaus-Studierende, Haus Sommerfeld,
Berlin, 1920 / 1921. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018
6. Postkarte von Theo van Doesburg an
Antony Kok, 12. September 1921, Foto:
Image Credits
Van-Doesburg-Archiv. © Van-Doesburg-
Archiv, Amsterdam, Rijkswijk
The Total Work of Art 7. Oskar Schlemmer, Signet „Staatliches
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie Bauhaus Weimar“ als Stempelabdruck, 1922.
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie, © Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019 8. Joost Schmidt, Plakat zur Bauhaus-
Ausstellung in Weimar, 1923, Foto: Markus
© Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Archiv
Hawlik. Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin / © VG Bild-
der Moderne
Ma Kunst, Bonn 2018
rc e © Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Archiv
lB 9. Joost Schmidt, Prospekt der Stadt Dessau,
reu der Moderne
er, 1931. Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau /
Ch © Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Archiv
air © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018
B5 der Moderne
, 19 10. Oskar Schlemmer, Signet „Das Bauhaus in
26 © Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie, Dessau“ als Stempelabdruck auf dem Vorsatz
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019 des Buches: Heinrich Hauser, Die letzten
Segelschiffe, S.Fischer Verlag, Berlin, um
Art, Crafts, Technology 1931. © Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
11. Die Meister auf dem Dach des Bauhauses:
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie,
Josef Albers, Hinnerk Scheper, Georg Muche,
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019
László Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer, Joost
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie
Schmidt, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer,
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie
Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie, Feininger, Gunta Stölzl und Oskar Schlemmer,
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019 1926, Foto: Lucia Moholy. Bauhaus-
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie Universität Weimar, Archiv der Moderne /
16. Adolf Hofmeister, Karikatur von Hannes
Meyer, 1930. Bauhaus-Universität Weimar,
Archiv der Moderne
17. Iwao Yamawaki, Der Schlag gegen das
Bauhaus, 1932. © Yamawaki Iwao & Michiko
Archives
18. Leben am Bauhaus Berlin: Der
Studierende Ernst Louis Beck vor dem
Eingang der umgebauten Telefonfabrik,
1932–1933, Foto: Unbekannt. Bauhaus-Archiv
Berlin
19. Josef Albers beim Unterrichten am
Bauhaus Dessau: Besprechung einer
Ausstellung dreidimensionaler Vorkurs-
arbeiten in Papier mit Studierenden, um 1928,
Foto: Umbo (Otto Umbehr). © The Albers
Foundation / Art Resource, NY / VG Bild-
Kunst, Bonn 2018
20. Signet des „new bauhaus, American
School of Design“, Chicago, 1937. Bauhaus-
Archiv Berlin
Chronology bottom images
1. Wanda von Debschitz-Kunowski, Metallwerk-
statt der Debschitz-Schule, München, um 1905.
© Münchner Stadtmuseum, Sammlung Foto-
grafie
2. Hölzel und seine Stuttgarter Schüler, v.l.n.r.:
Wickenburg, Kerkovius, unbekannt, Kinzinger,
Stenner, Hölzel, Hildebrandt, Baumeister,
Schlemmer, Eberhard, 1914, Foto: Unbekannt.
© Adolf Hölzel-Stiftung, Stuttgart
3. Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke, Plakat anlässlich der
Ausstellung „Deutsche Werkbund Ausstellung“
in Coeln, 1914. © bpk / Kunstbibliothek, SMB
4. Herwarth Walden vor seiner Portätbüste
von William Wauer, um 1918, Foto:
Unbekannt. © bpk / Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
5. Bettelnder, einbeiniger Kriegsversehrter
in Uniform mit Orden, Berlin, 1923,
Foto: Unbekannt. © Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-
1972-062-01
6. Hermann Max Pechstein, Flugblatt Arbeits-
rat für Kunst Berlin, 1919. © Max Pechstein
Urheberrechtsgemeinschaft
7. Eröffnungssitzung der verfassungs-
10. Herbert Bayer, Notgeldscheine, 1923,
Foto: Andreas Körner. Institut für
Auslandsbeziehungen / © VG Bild-Kunst,
Bonn 2018
11. Titelbild der Zeitschrift „Das neue
Frankfurt“, 1. Jahrgang, 1926 / 1927, Heft 2,
Thema: Mechanisierung des Wohnungsbaus/
Der Weg vom Ziegelmauerwerk zum
Frankfurter Montageverfahren, Baustelle mit
vorgefertigten Elementen, ca. 1927, Foto:
Unbekannt. © Institut für Stadtgeschichte
Frankfurt am Main, S7A1998_24299
12. Willi Baumeister, Plakat „Wie wohnen?“
für die Werkbund-Ausstellung „Die Wohnung“,
Stuttgart, 1927. (CC) BY-NC-SA Willi
Baumeister Stiftung
13. Werbeblatt für die Werkbund-Ausstellung
„Film und Foto“, Stuttgart, 1929, unter
Verwendung einer Fotografie von László
Moholy-Nagy, 1929. © bpk / Kunstbibliothek,
SMB / Dietmar Katz
14. Ausstellungsansicht „Modern Architecture:
International Exhibition“, Museum of Modern
Art, New York, 10. Februar bis 23. März 1932,
Foto: The Museum of Modern Art Archives.
© The Museum of Modern Art, New York /
Scala, Florence
15. Ausstellung „Entartete Kunst“ im Galerie-
gebäude am Münchener Hofgarten, 1937,
Foto: Unbekannt. © bpk / Zentralarchiv, SMB
16. Alfred H. Barr, Katalog der Ausstellung
„Cubism and Abstract Art“ am Museum of
Modern Art, New York, 2. März bis 19. April
1936. © The Museum of Modern Art Library,
New York

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© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018 gebenden Deutschen Nationalversammlung
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie, 12. Bauhausgebäude in Dessau, 1926 / 1927, im Deutschen National­theater in Weimar
Hubert Hoffmann Third Reich’s motorway building VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019 Foto: Junkers-Luftbildaufnahmen. Institut für am 6. Februar 1919, am Rednerpult Friedrich
programme. He was called back Auslandsbeziehungen Ebert, 1919, Zeichnung: Hans W. Schmidt. Responsible

X
Urban planner and architect
from military service in northern Radical Pedagogy 13. Marianne Brandt, „Palucca tanzt“, 1929. © Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin Dr. Ellen Strittmatter
23 March 1904 in Berlin / German
France, and then became a © Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden / 8. Wladimir Tatlin, Modell des Denkmals
Empire – 25 September 1999 in
surveyor and planner in occupied © Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018 für die Dritte Internationale, 1920, Foto: Artistic Director
Graz / Austria
Lithuania (1942–44), and then at © Sammlung Bernd Freese 14. Oskar Schlemmer, Manda von Kreibig in Unbekannt. © Moderna Museet, Stockholm Dr. Valerie Hammerbacher

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the German Academy for Reich Stäbetanz II, Bauhausbühne, 1927, 9. El Lissitzky, Internationaler Kongress der
When Hoffmann came down to © Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie Konstruktivisten und Dadaisten, Weimar,
and Urban Construction in Berlin Foto: Unbekannt. Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin Project Management
the Dessau Bauhaus from Berlin © Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie 1922. © Foundation Khardzhiev / Stedelijk
(1944–45). At the end of the war, 15. Hannes Mayer, Hans Wittwer und Dr. Clea Laade
for the winter semester 1926–27, © Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie Museum Amsterdam
he was taken prisoner by US Hermann Bunzel, Bundesschule Bernau, Blick

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he had already completed forces. Thereafter he became auf den Wohnflügel der ADGB, 1931, Foto: Scientific Research
apprenticeships in farming and Community
an urban planner in Magdeburg, Arthur Redecker. Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin / Laura Wünsche
in bricklaying and attended a until the liberal politician Fritz © Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie © Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau Lara Eva Sochor
building school, an arts and Hesse, a former promoter of the © Klassik Stiftung Weimar Elena Kaifel
crafts school and the Technical © Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie

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Bauhaus who had been re- Stefanie Bürgel
University of Hanover. To summer appointed as city mayor, brought © Galerie Kicken
1929 and again from 1930 to him back to Dessau. Hoffmann © Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie
1932 as a guest, Hoffmann was asked to organise the © Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie
studied under all three Bauhaus reestablishment of the Bauhaus, © Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Archiv Exhibition

I
directors. He carried out his but was then caught up in the der Moderne
experiments in the carpentry and turmoil of the post-Nazi appraisal © Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie Curator of the touring exhibition
advertising workshops and in the of the past. He was denounced © Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Archiv The Whole World a Bauhaus:
construction department. He as a collaborator, and then der Moderne Boris Friedewald

M
gained his first business practice returned disappointed back to
with Fred Forbat in Berlin in West Berlin. From 1953 to 1958 Floating Curators of the contributions from the
1930. At this time, he was in he worked as a freelance regions at the exhibition at the Center
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie,
contact with a group of left-wing architect in Bonn and Berlin, and for Art and Media Karlsruhe:
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019

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Bauhaus people and designed was co-initiator of Interbau and Prof. Dr. Enrique X. de Anda Alanís:
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie
the Proletarian Building the exhibition The City of The Whole World a Bauhaus Mexico City, Mexico
© Harvard Art Museums / Busch-Reisinger
Exhibition in 1931. When the Tomorrow. From 1959 to 1975 Silvia Fernández: Buenos Aires,
Museum, Gift of the Baron-Baum Family, 2007.115
Nazis came to power in 1933, he Hoffmann was the professor of an exhibition by ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) Stuttgart, Germany. Argentina
© Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau
was interred in a penal camp. www.ifa.de

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urban planning and design at © Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie, Prof. Dr. Margret Kentgens-Craig:
Thereafter he was unable to find the Technical University of Bauhaus Reception in the
Estate of T. Lux Feininger
much work until the Reich Graz / Steiermark. His Austrian USA, 1919–39
Chamber of Culture managed to years were characterised by © Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie, Dr. Alexander Klee: Stuttgart, Germany
prevent him from being prohibited making connections between art VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019 Salma Lahlou: Casablanca, Morocco

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from working at all. and life, and also his © Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) promotes worldwide cultural exchange to assist David Maulen: Santiago de Chile, Chile
From 1934 to 1936 he was an functionalism with its basis in © Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, VG Bild-Kunst, peoples, nations and religions in learning from one another and living together peacefully. PD Dr. Christiane Post: Moscow,
assistant at the Berlin Technical anthroposophical thought. Bonn 2019 We promote art and cultural exchange in exhibitions, dialogue and conference programs. Russia
University and worked on the As a competence centre for international cultural relations, ifa connects civil societies, Curator of the contribution by
Text: Astrid Volpert
Encounters cultural practices, art, media and science. We initiate, moderate and document discussions ZKM | Center for Art and Media for the
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie on international cultural relations. exhibition at ZKM | Karlsruhe:
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie Prof. Dr. h. c. mult. Peter Weibel
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie,
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019, Scenography / Architecture
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie, Studio Ilke Penzlien with
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019 Peter Kortmann
© Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Archiv der Moderne The exhibition “The Whole World a Bauhaus” is supported by Ministerium für Kunst, and Robert Müller
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie Wissenschaft und Forschung Baden-Württemberg and and by the Federal Foreign Office.
© Centre G. Pompidou / Bibliothèque Kandinsky Technical Advice
© Nekbakht Foundation, Suresnes Martin Edelmann

The New Man Graphic Design

ltless shelf,”
Hubert Hof fmann, “bo 0
lf, prototype, detail, 193
dismountable book she
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie HIT
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie,
Exhibition Première in Germany Chronology und Diagram
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019
© Hermann Famulla (Nachlass Fritz Kuhr) Nicole Opel
The Whole World a Bauhaus
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie
October 26, 2019 – February 16, 2020 Texts
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie,
ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe Boris Friedewald
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019
© Harvard Art Museums / Busch-Reisinger
Museum, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019 Biographies
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie Astrid Volpert
Boris Friedewald
Artistic-scientific chairman, CEO
Experiment
Prof. Dr. h.c. mult. Peter Weibel Translation
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie Dr. Greg Bond, English
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie Head of Curatorial Department Pedro Gallegos, Spanish
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie Philipp Ziegler
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie Photography
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie Project Management Andreas Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie
© Photo: ifa, A. Körner, bildhübsche Fotografie Hannah-Maria Winters
Sound Technician
Technical Project Management Levi Harrison
Anne Däuper Studio Tongoetze

kindly supported by Voice Acting

Ingrid L. Blecha Gesellschaft m.b.H., Filmolux Deutschland GmbH, Dagmar Harrold, Levi Harrison, English
KPM Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Berlin GmbH, Christopher Farr, Mevaco GmbH, Mario Pitz, German
Tecnolumen GmbH & Co. KG, Naef Spiele AG, Dringenberg GmbH Davorin Strauss, German
Annette von der Seipen, German

Copyright
Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e. V. (ifa),
the artists and authors
The Spirit of the Bauhaus
The Bauhaus was only in existence
for a few years. But in these years,
and then especially the years after
the Bauhaus was closed down, this
art school became a symbol of
modernism. Bauhaus influence and
reception were at their greatest in
the 1960s. Archives were established
and modernism was celebrated
in many large exhibitions. At a time
when designers and artists were
turning away from the avant-garde,
the Bauhaus was reborn in the
systems of remembrance in museums.
No other institution has succeeded
in turning the everyday work of
teaching into a way of life in a way
comparable to the Bauhaus. Today
the Bauhaus stands for a state of
mind: avant-garde, free, progressive,
and modern in the social, political
and artistic senses. The Bauhaus
has become a symbol. In spite of
all the criticism of its functional
approach that began to be voiced
in the 1960s, Bauhaus modernism
is still a significant point of reference.
It has been reassessed, and yet
returned to the fore as a counter to
post-modernism. Art historian and
director of Documenta 12 Roger
M Bürgel found a precise formulation
for this contradictory state of affairs
in one of his key questions. One
of the themes of the Documenta
was: “Is modernity our antiquity?”
On the occasion of the hundredth
anniversary of the foundation of
the Bauhaus, in 2019, we ask what
makes the Bauhaus relevant today.
Argentinian architect Tomás
Maldonado (born 1922, Buenos
Aires), teacher and director of the
Ulm School of Design (1955–67),
answered this question as follows:
“The Bauhaus is only accepted in a
superficial and restorative sense. (…)
Essentially, this is just a false flower,
an attempt to canonise the Bauhaus,
or – better – to archaeologise it,
to transform the Bauhaus into a
relic that is only brought out for
high ceremonies. A cult object that
sometimes fulfils the functions of
a totem and sometimes of a taboo.”
His text, entitled “Is the Bauhaus
relevant today?” was published in
1963, at a time when the reception
of the Bauhaus had reached a
peak. In 1960 the Bauhaus Archive
was founded in Darmstadt by art
historian Hans Maria Wingler (1920–
84), who directed it until his death
in 1984. The aim of the archive was
to conduct research on the Bauhaus
and to publish results. Through
texts, catalogues and exhibitions the
memory of the Bauhaus was kept
alive, securing it a place in the present.
On the opening of the archive, the
Stuttgarter Zeitung wrote: “If you will,
you can refer everything back to the
Bauhaus, and let it shine out into the
future from there.” 1 Under Wingler,
the archive saw itself as the memory
of the institution, with the task of
reflecting on its significance for
the present day. Documents were
collected, ordered and administered,
and the network of the Bauhaus
teachers and students who were
still living was nurtured. Hans Maria
Wingler and Walter Gropius, with
whom Wingler worked very closely,
were instrumental in shaping the
contemporary image and discourse
of the Bauhaus.2
Wingler also organised the 50 Years
of the bauhaus exhibition, together
with former Bauhaus teacher
Herbert Bayer (1900–85), exhibition
designer Dieter Honisch (born 1932),
and art historian Ludwig Grote
(1993–74). ifa (Institut für Auslands-
beziehungen) organised a successful
tour for this exhibition in 1968. ifa
sent this exhibition to various
museums around the world; it was
shown in 1969 in Chicago, 1970 in
Buenos Aires, and 1971 in Tokyo.
The aim of this ifa exhibition is
clearly stated in its title. 50 Years
of the bauhaus defines a period of
time much longer than the actual
existence of the school itself, which
continued to be alive and well
decades after its closure. There is
a Bauhaus spirit here too, asserting
a certain philosophy (not dependent
on specific objects) all over the
world. This exhibition, financed by
the state of Baden-Württemberg and
the German Foreign Office, also had
a cultural and political agenda: to
show the Bauhaus as an exemplary
free and democratic German
community in the times of the Cold
War and the conflict between East
and West – even if this community
was historical. The Bauhaus idea
was a model that could be applied
all over the world, independent
of one institution and timeless.3
The 50 Years of the bauhaus exhi-
bition made it possible to report
on an artistic avant-garde, and also
to take a closer look at the Weimar
Republic years, seen as shaping
the context within which the Bauhaus
was possible. This was an age
that was open for democracy and
freedom and a positive point of
reference for the culture of memory
in contemporary West Germany.
The Bauhaus was a place where
earlier advocates of democracy
worked, and its activities were
abruptly brought to an end by the
Nazi dictatorship.3
In 1969, one year after the exhibition
premiered in Stuttgart, Wingler’s
Bauhaus Archive association
received an offer of finance from the
city of Berlin, including the building
of new premises and a move from
Darmstadt to Berlin. Walter Gropius
designed the new building, which
was then built – with considerable
alterations to Gropius’s design –
between 1976 and 1979. The Bauhaus
supporters thus established an insti-
tution that to this day works to keep
the memory of the Bauhaus alive,
in both academic circles and for
a general public.
From the 1960s, information on the
Bauhaus, and its artists and products
was collected, researched, and
then brought into the depots of mu-
seums, and at the same time a new
generation of designers was becoming
more critical. With remembering
the Bauhaus at a peak, the Bauhaus
approach was subjected to funda-
mental critique. Functionalism and
its advocacy of the separation of
working and living environments was
in crisis. Classical modernism, which
saw itself as a new and timeless
movement, was considered blind to
history. Universalism assumed that
the achievements of progressive
architecture could be implemented
anywhere in the world, but this
view was now challenged. How
international is an international style
and to what extent can Bauhaus
ideas be transferred to other cultures?  4
This is the context that underlies
our own view of the Bauhaus today.
The exhibition The Whole World a
Bauhaus intends to once again draw
attention to the Bauhaus school,
and to show both its diversity and
complexity. In just a few years, the
Bauhaus attracted designers and
artists who revolutionised the first
half of the twentieth century – with
abstract painting and figurines that
moved from the two-dimensional
space of the painting and walked
on stage; with experiments with pho-
tography and film; with text and font
designs that challenged established
reading habits; with applied art that
was seen as equal to the fine arts;
and with teaching methods that were
to become exemplary for schools
all around the world. Artists working
at the Bauhaus had very different
approaches to design, and also
different political views. Modernism
was visible here in many forms, and
fundamental questions were asked
concerning the connections between
art and life, social relevance, and
the design of contemporary life.
The exhibition title also stands for a
research task for experts in various
regions. The Whole World a
Bauhaus? shows case studies from
Buenos Aires, Casablanca, Mexico
City, Moscow, Santiago de Chile,
the USA as well as Karlsruhe and
Stuttgart. The focus was not on the
emigrants from the Bauhaus after
it was closed down in 1933, but the
spread and use of Bauhaus ideas
and transcultural contexts in the
1920s. In 1925 the Chilean artist,
composer and musician Carlos
Isamitt (1887–1974) came to Europe
in order to study teaching, and he
then implemented the methods when
he founded the Escuela de Bellas
Artes in Santiago de Chile. Even
the thistle drawn by students in
Johannes Itten’s preliminary course
was integrated into teaching there,
but no longer as a synesthetic study.
Instead the aim was to use it as
an abstract pattern with indigenous
forms. The spirit of the Bauhaus
provided the impetus, but it was
transformed into something else.
A project of this kind can only be
undertaken by many people working
together. We would like to thank
the artistic director of the exhibition
Valérie Hammerbacher (ifa), and
and the curator of the touring exhi-
bition Boris Friedewald as well
as the curators of the case studies
Enrique X. de Anda Alanís, Silvia
Fernández, Margret Kentgens-Craig,
Alexander Klee, Salma Lahlou,
David Maulen, Christiane Post and
Peter Weibel. We also thank Ilke
Penzlien, Peter Kortmann, Lina
Grumm and Annette Lux for the exhi-
bition design. We thank Peter Weibel,
Philipp Ziegler and Hannah-Maria
Winters for the opportunity to present
the exhibition at the Center for Art
and Media in Karlsruhe. We all hope
that exhibition visitors will experience
the spirit of the Bauhaus together
with us in this exhibition – “in pro-
ductive disunity,” as painter Josef
Albers once described the Bauhaus
community of masters in 1922.
1  Richard Biedrzynski: “Bauhaus.
Ulrich Raulff Zur Eröffnung des Darmstädter
President Archivs auf der Mathildenhöhe,”
in Stuttgarter Zeitung, 10.04.1961.
ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)
2  Walter Gropius: “I back him up
through thick and thin because he
opened his ears to all my advice,
Ronald Grätz and I hope he will go on doing
General Secretary this,” cited from Claudia Heitmann,
Die Bauhaus-Rezeption in der
ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) Bundesrepublik Deutschland.
Etappen und Institutionen, Trier
2001, p. 49.
3  Claudia Heitmann (see note 2),
“Die Ausstellung 50 Jahre
Bauhaus – Kulminationspunkt
der bundesdeutschen Rezeption,”
pp. 224–238.
4  Dazu: Rasheed Araeen, “Our
Bauhaus others’ Mudhouse,” in
Third Text. Critical Perspectives on
Contemporary Art and Culture, 6,
vol. 3, London, 1989, pp. 3–14. See
also the exhibition Magiciens de
la Terre, 18 May 1989 – 14 August
1989, Centre Georges Pompidou,
Paris, and also the polemic text
by Tom Wolfe, From Bauhaus
to Our House, New York, 1981.