The BAUHAUS

Origins and Antecedents

•  The complete building is the ultimate

aim of the visual arts!
•  The total work of art
•  Bau (construction; building)
 Zeitgeist

•  Spirit of the times .

•  The radical education was set down in
the Manifesto and Programme published
in April 1919
Weimar republic and the
Bauhaus, 1919

•  Bauhaus manifesto
•  The Cathedral
 The Manifesto

The complete building is the ultimate aim

of the visual arts! The highest function
of the fine arts was once the decoration
of buildings, and the fine arts were once
indispensable to architecture.
 The Manifesto
Today they exist in complacent isolation,
and can only be rescued by the joint
conscious efforts of all the craftsmen.
Architects, painters and sculptors must
once again come to know and
understand the composite character of a
building both as a whole and in terms
of the sum of its parts.
 The Manifesto

Only then will their works be filled with

the true architectonic spirit which has
become lost in the art of the salons.
 The Manifesto

Architects, painters, and sculptors we

must all return to the crafts! For there is
no such thing as professional art.
 The Manifesto

There is no essential difference between

the artists and the craftsmen: the artist
is the craftsman raised to a higher
power…
 The Manifesto
Let us therefore create a new guild of
craftsmen, without the class distinction
that tries to erect an arrogant barrier
between craftsman and artist. Let us
conceive, consider and create together
the new building of the future that will
bring everything into one single
integrated creation: architecture,
painting and sculpture rising to the
Heaven…
 The Manifesto

…out of the hands of a million craftsmen,

the crystal symbol of the new faith of
the future.
 The cathedral

The crystal symbol was powerfully

signified by Lyonel Feininger s woodcut
and by the first Bauhaus signer,
designed in medieval style to show a
symbolic building being raised by the
craftsmen-artists.
 Walter Gropius
(1883-1969)

•  Founder and first director fo the

Bauhaus
•  Worked as assistant to Peter Behrens,
1907
•  Partners with Adolf Meyer
•  Member of the Werkbund, 1912
 On Walter Gropius

•  Walter Gropius was director of the

Bauhaus from 1919 to 1928. He
designed the new building in Dessau
in 1925-26. He emigrated in 1934 to
London, and in 1937 to the United
States where he was an instructor at
Harvard University
 Antecedents
•  The Crystal Palace
•  William Morris and the Arts & Crafts
Movement
•  Charles Renie Mackintosh
•  Hermann Muthesius vs Henry van de
Velde
•  Peter Behrens
•  De Stijl
Christopher Dresser s Teapots
 Christopher Dresser

Coffee pots and water jugs

Carafes and Claret jugs

 Christopher Dresser

Cruet sets

Etc,…
Peter Behrens
Peter Behrens
Charles Renie Mackintosh
and the Glasgow School
Charles Renie MAckintosh
The Designs of Charles Renie Mackintosh
Bauhaus at Weimar: The
Early years

•  Johannes Itten and the Basic Course

(Vorkurs)
•  Masters of form
•  Masters of technique
 Vorkurs

•  The 6-month preliminary course was

the cornerstone of the Bauhaus teaching
and Itten decided who should take part
in it.
•  Plan of the training program at Weimar.
The outer edge of the wheel show the
half-year Vorkurs, then comes the study
of materials and tools, geometry, color,
composition, etc.
•  The innermost circle represents color,
textiles, glass, clay, stone, wood, metal,
while the hub of the wheel is Building
– construction, engineering, building
site, testing site and design.
The Pioneers: Masters
of Form

•  Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Lyonel

Feininger, Gerhard Marcks, Lothar
Schleyer, Georg Muche, Oskar
Sclemmer, Johannes Itten, and Lazlo
Moholy-Nagy
 Paul Klee

•  Klee joined the Bauhaus in 1920

•  He was involve with both the book-
binding and stained-glass workshops
but his most significant contribution
was to the Vorkurs
•  His famous definition of drawing as
taking a line for a walk
 Wassily Kandinsky

•  Kandinsky was both a celebrated

abstract (non-figurative) painter and a
theoretician.
•  He arrived at the Bauhaus in 1922.
Wassily KAndinsky
Wassily kandinsky
 Lyonel Feininger

•  Feininger was appointed to the printing

workshop
•  He had been a cartoonist before he
become a painter; his works was
strongly influenced by Cubism, which
transformed his caricatural style into
the disjointed architectonic shapes.
 Gerhard Marcks

•  Marcks came to know Gropius through

his membership of the Deutscher
Werkbund. He was noted for his lean
elegant figure sculpture and woodcuts
and contributed to the Bauhaus
production as a printmaker.
•  His appointment was to the pottery
workshop as a Master of Form
 George Muche
•  Muche was Master of Form in the
weaving workshop from 1921-1927 and
also taught at the Vorkurs.
•  He was by far the youngest teacher at
the Weimar Bauhaus. His
independence and laissez-faire attitude
toward technical activity enabled the
students evolved distinct style which
made it second to the ceramics
workshops in popularity
 Oskar Schlemmer

•  Master of Form in the sculpture

workshop. Schlemmer designed the
seal of the State Bauhaus, 1922. The
original seal design by Karl-Peter Rohl
was replaced by Schlemmer s more
formal image, with economical lines
and obvious debt to the De Stijl.
 Johannes Itten

•  Born in Switzerland and trained as a

teacher of young children in the Froebel
method (learning by doing)
•  Itten(1888-1967) took charge of the
Basic Course at the Bauhaus Weimar
On Johannes Itten
 Lazlo Moholy-Nagy

•  Hungarian by birth, painter and

graphic artist, was director of the
Bauhaus metal workshop and
instructor of typography, film, and
stage design from 1923 to 1928.
 The 1923 Exhibition

•  The exhibition of 1923 focused

European attention on the Bauhaus.
•  The Circle of Friends of the Bauhaus,
whose governing body included Albert
Einstein, Arnold Schonberg, Peter
Behrens and Marc Chagall, was formed
to raise support and funds for the
institution.
Art & Technology
Bauhaus at Dessau, 1924

•  Hochschule fur Gestaltung (Institute of

Design), 1926
•  The original system (team-teaching) of
Masters of Form and Masters of
Technique was now abandoned as the
Form Masters took the academic title of
Professor.
Bauhaus Teaching Staff
(dessau)
•  The teaching staff of the Dessau
Bauhaus, 1926 included Josef Albers,
Scheper, Muche, Moholy-Nagy, Herbert
Bayer, Joost Schmidt, Gropius, Marcel
Breuer, Kandinsky, Klee, Feininger,
Gunta Stozl, Schlemmer.
 Bauhaus Building

By Walter Gropius.
 The Bauhaus Building

•  The building was almost clad with

glass-walls. It revealed both the
structure of the building and the
activity within it. Its most striking
feature of the exterior is to have
BAUHAUS emblazoned on its side.
The Bauhaus Building &
New Architecture

•  The complex of Bauhaus buildings was

designed by Gropius in Modernist
idiom, New Architecture. New
architects of the period include Frank
Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Gerrit
Rietveld.
 New Architecture:
International Style
International Style
International Style

By Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

International Style
•  New Architecture was characterized by
the use of modern materials; emphasis
on horizontal planes and the angular
interlocking of part to part.
•  The block-like structure further
emphasized its flat roof.
and its workshops
 The Workshops

•  The glass-walled workshop area,

revealed both the structure of the
building and the activity within it.
The Ceramics Workshop
The Weaving Workshop

•  The designs of the Bauhaus textiles

were linked with the work being done
on the Vorkurs; the use of materials and
color theory; studies emphasizing
texture, studies from nature, and
exercises on ornamental abstraction
provided inspiration for the students of
the weaving workshop.
Graphic work at the Bauhaus

•  Visual typography
•  Square format
•  Universal sans serif typeface (Universal
type), using only structurally essential
parts of each letter and limiting the
forms to the irreducible series of arcs
and straight line.
The Furniture Workshop

•  The cabinet-making workshop, to

which Marcel Breuer was apprenticed,
was set up in 1921 with Gropius as first
Master of Form.
•  It derived its form from a variety of
sources: William Morris Sussex chairs
of the 1860s
•  Form follows function
•  Constructivism with its ideas of multi-
functionality
•  Mass-produced bentwood chairs
produced by Michael Thonet
•  De Stijl and Gerrit Reitveld s Red-Blue
chair; sticks and planes accentuated by
bright primary De Stijl color
Marcel Breuer
Gerrit Rietveld: Z Chair
Verner Panton: S chair
 Hannes Meyer

•  Architect, worked from 1927 to 1928

as a master of architecture at the
Bauhaus before he became director of
the Bauhaus itself in 1928. One year
later he was forced out of the position
because of his political (communist)
activities.
 Last Director of the
Bauhaus

In 1927 he became the director of the

Werkbund exhibit in Stuttgart-
Weissenhof, and in 1929 he designed
the German pavilion at the World
Exhibition in Barcelona. From 1930 to
1933 he was the last director of the
Bauhaus in Germany.
Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

Architect, worked in the office of Peter

Behrens from 1908 to 1911 and created his
first designs for glass high rises in the
early 1920s.
•  Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was ordered
by the German government to design
the German house for the universal
exhibition in Barcelona - spain, in 1929.
Barcelona chair
 Bauhaus closure

•  Despite Mies attempts to keep politics

out…, it was closed by the government
in 1932 and the building was ransacked
by the Nazis .
•  Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Moholy-
Nagy and Breuer were among those
who joined the exodus of artists and
intellectuals from Nazi Germany to
United States .
•  Moholy-Nagy and New Bauhaus in
Chicago, 1937
•  Mies van Rohe, dean of the Illinois
Institute of Techology
•  Gropius, Chair of Architecture at
Harvard
 Conclusion

•  The philosophy of the Bauhaus had

become international…The new
materials – glass and steel – along with
the typical simple geometrical shapes
became the hallmarks of the
International Style
 Functionalism

•  The theory of functionalism produced

clear and simple forms. Ornamentation
is considered a crime in quest for
industrial mass production especially
so when social aspect of design is an
important consideration…
Modern architecture and industrial mass
production were expected to be able to
create inexpensive apartments and
furniture for the working class .
 FUNCTIONALISM

•  Form follows function

•  De Stijl
•  Bauhaus
•  Mies van der Rohe Less is more
•  Le Corbusier
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Le Corbusier (1887-1965)

•  L Esprit Nouveau, a magazine which

underlines the need for new
architecture in tune with the
developments of the machine age
•  While Le Corbusier was uninspired by
the buildings of the immediate past, he
admired the architecture of Classical
antiquity .
 Vers Un Architecture

•  Published 1923, it is one of the most

significant architectural book of the 20th
century.
 Machine for living in

•  Hallmarks of Le Corbusier s
architecture
•  Geometric white block concrete,
raised on slender columns (pilotis), a
flat roof, and lots of windows set
flush with the walls and terrace.
La Villa Savoye (1928-29()

•  Constructed in Poissy showing a

sculptural treatment of forms, it
summarizes the Five Points of New
Architecture according to Le Corbusier
•  A free plan, a free façade, pilotis, a
terrace and ribbon windows.
Le Corbusier
Epilogue to the bauhaus
•  The Bauhaus: 50 years exhibition,
London, 1968
The slowly developed attitude in the
Bauhaus to include everything and
exclude nothing which belongs to the
totality of life, to say and instead of
either/or has anticipated today s
comeback to a total involvement as
a g a i n s t n a r r o w
specialization (Gropius)
Gropius approach and
idealism…

•  Artists and designers of the future

begin their studies with diagnostic
foundation courses which spring
directly from the Vorkurs…The fabric
of our lives is affected by the Bauhaus,
we live and work in buildings
influenced by its ideas, and use
everyday objects which had their
origins in the workshops at Dessau.