THE BAUHAUS

The Staatliches Bauhaus, commonly known as

the Bauhaus, was a German art school
operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined
crafts and the fine arts. Bauhaus was an
influential art and design movement that began
in 1919 in Weimar, Germany. The movement
encouraged teachers and students to pursue their
crafts together in design studios and workshops.
The school moved to Dessau in 1925 and then to
Berlin in 1932, after which Bauhaus—under
constant harassment by the Nazis—finally
Walter Gropius’ Dessau Bauhaus building closed. 

The Bauhaus movement championed a geometric, abstract style featuring little sentiment or emotion and no
historical nods, and its aesthetic continues to influence architects, designers and artists.
Facts behind the bauhaus ;
1.It started as an actual school
:
Gropius was an architect and the term
Bauhaus literally translates as "construction
house," the school of design did not have an
architecture department until 1927.

2.It was against the arts'

class snobbery ;
In a pamphlet for an April 1919 exhibition,
Gropius stated that his goal was "to create a new
guild of craftsmen, without the class
distinctions which raise an arrogant barrier
between craftsman and artist."
3.It proved that the functional needn't be boring .

4.It included several

influential artists
The school had many major artists among its
teachers. This photo from 1926 features, from
left to right, Josef Albers, Hinnerk Scheper,
Georg Muche, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Herbert
Bayer, Joost Schmidt, Walter Gropius, Marcel
Breuer, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel
Feininger, Gunta Stölzl and Oskar Schlemmer.
Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
were also directors of the school.
Bauhaus artists held legendary costume
parties ;

Although the Bauhaus is associated with

minimalist design, students and teachers
invested an unsuspected amount of energy
in creating surreal costumes for parties, as
reported by Farkas Molnar in his 1925
essay, "Life at the Bauhaus." The parties
began as improvised events but were later
turned into large-scale productions, such as
Oskar Schlemmer's "Triadic Ballet" from
1922 (photo).
 Walter Gropius
GERMAN ARCHITECT
Born: May 18, 1883 - Berlin, Germany
Died: July 5, 1969 - Massachusetts, USA
Movements and Styles: Bauhaus

Walter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German-American architect and founder of the Bauhaus
School, who, along with Alvar Aalto, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd
Wright, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture. He is a
founder of Bauhaus in Weimar. 
Important Art by Walter Gropius ;
1. 1910 2. 1921
The Fagus Factory Sommerfeld House

3’1922 4.1925-26
Monument to the March Dead Bauhaus building
5.1937
Gropius House

6.1949-50
Harvard Graduate Center
 Walter Gropius a War Hero
Apart from his professional life, Walter Gropius served in the First World War. He served as a sergeant in
the signal corps where he is said to have survived after being buried alive. 

Escape from Germany 

Walter Gropius did not keep faith with Hitler or his government. He
secretly left Germany with his wife Ise Frank via Italy to England in
1934.
He practiced architecture in England with architect Maxwell Fry till
he left for America in 1936.

Taught at Harvard
After being offered a teaching role at Harvard’s Graduate School of
Design by Dean Joseph Hudnut, Walter Gropius left England in 1937.