The Bauhaus was an art school in Germany which emerged in 1919. It was

famous for its unique approach to design and its massive influence on the

modern western culture.  It was also considered to be the greatest design

institution of the 20th century.

In the Bauhaus both designers and students broke away from tradition and

focused more on developing a more modern style. They tried to find a way

of dealing with life on an aesthetic level. Their main objective was to

integrate art, technology and craftsmanship and generate a new design

philosophy by ignoring the past precedent. They encouraged the use of

innovative ideas in all practices which could range from architecture to

furniture design to typography. They believed all forms of design should

have been considered a high art similar to painting or sculpture.

First established in the old city of Weimar where the new German

constitution was also devised, the Bauhaus moved to Dessau in 1925 where

they carried on for another seven years. In 1932 the school was moved

again to Berlin but were quickly shut down permanently by the Nazi Regime

a year later in 1933. This was all due to the fact that the Nazi party opposed

the Bauhaus for many years, because they saw it as something closely

related to communism since many members of the school were Russian.

Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus in 1919. Gropius was a German

architect who served in the Great War and dreamed about a school of art

and design which would help change the world. The roots of such would be

drawn from the arts and crafts school founded by the Grand Duke of Saxe-

Weimar-Eisenach in 1906 and directed by Henry van de Velde, a Belgian Art

Nouveau. This was due to van de Velde’s forced resignation in 1915 which

led him to suggest Gropius as part of three possible successors. Gropius’

dream came into fruition early in 1919 when he was asked to found the

school along with expressing his revolutionary ideas in a manifesto. This

was done in Weimar which was regarded as the cultural heart of the nation

and was less troubled by rioting. It was also the place where politicians held

their meetings due to this. Upon completion the school was named the

‘Bauhaus’ which when translated means building house and it was

supported by public funds. The Bauhaus also inspired soviet revolutions and

German mutinies which helped end the war. This was followed by an

abortive communist revolution in Germany and a declaration of a republic

from the balcony of the royal palace in Berlin.

Upon moving the Bauhaus to Dessau in 1925, Gropius decided to alter if not

completely change the initial design for its facilities. He did this by

returning to the more futuristic design ideas he once looked into and

considered back in 1914. It had more in common with the International

style lines of the Fagus Factory rather than the stripped down Neo-classical

of the Werkbund pavilion or the Völkisch Sommerfeld House. Due to this

idea the following years in Dessau saw a vivid change in the direction of the

school. Going by the account given by Elaine Hoffman, Meyer wasn’t the

first person Gropius considered for running the newly-founded architecture

program. His first choice was Mart Stam who declined the position leaving

Gropius to instead turn to his friend and colleague in the ABC group,

Hannes Meyer.

In February 1928 Gropius resigned, making Meyer the director and as the

new director he made some good choices however a lot of his decisions

were viewed as destructive and quite unnecessary. On the bright side he

brought the Bauhaus its two most significant building commissions which

were five apartment buildings in the city of Dessau and the headquarters of

the Federal School of the German Trade Unions in Bernau. Meyer also used

an approach which proved to be quite attractive to potential clients. In plain

sight it revolved around his presentations to them in which he favoured

measurements and calculations, along with the use of off-the-shelf

architectural components which reduced costs. In 1929 the school turned

its first profit under his leadership.

In contrast to this Meyer unfortunately generated a great deal of conflict

because of his bad decisions. Firstly, as a radical functionalist he felt the

need to force Herbert Bayer, Marcel Breuer and other long-time instructors

to resign due to his impatience with the aesthetic program. As a vocal

Communist he encouraged the formation of communist student

organizations which under the increasingly dangerous political atmosphere

became a threat to the existence of the Dessau school. This led to Meyer

getting fired by Gropius in the summer of 1930.

Changing location from Dessau to Berlin in 1932, the Bauhaus made its

third and final attempt to resume function in Germany. Unfortunately this

ended in failure based on various issues. First of all despite Hitler and the

Nazi Party having no cohesive architectural policy until 1933, writers like

Wilhelm Frick and Alfred Rosenberg had already labelled the Bauhaus ‘un-

German’ and deliberately made their critiques with the sole purpose of

causing controversy which further discredited the Bauhaus. The Bauhaus

was often denounced for its ‘degenerate art’ by the Nazi movement and was

viewed as the foreign, probably Jewish influences of ‘cosmopolitan

modernism’. This negative attitude increased the political pressure on the

school. Due to the Nazi regime’s inability to see things differently the

protests by Gropius against their accusations fell on deaf ears. He stated

that as a war veteran and a patriot his work had no subversive political

intent but despite him doing so the Berlin Bauhaus was still pressured to

close down in April 1933.

Among the emigrants who decided to take on the task of spreading the

Bauhaus influence was Mies van der Rohe. He immigrated to the United

States for the directorship of the School of Architecture at the Armour

Institute in Chicago whilst also seeking building commissions. Van der

Rohe’s actions as well as those by the many other individuals from the

Bauhaus, led to its wide spread influence all over the world.

References

http://www.slideshare.net/amenitya/the-bauhaus-presentation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-bauhaus.htm