The Bauhaus was a revolution in terms of art education.
By incorporating ideas and techniques from a variety of disciplines, those at the Bauhaus believed that they would be able to create; or to provide the foundation for a more articulate, efficient and far more descriptive vehicle for visual language to be communicated to the people.
It was founded due to the merger of an existing Arts and Crafts school, and the Weimar Academy of Fine Arts. (Sharp, D., 1943) The Bauhaus was originally situated in Weimar, Germany, it then moved to a building designed by Walter Gropius, and his staff and students in 1925, where it operated under himself and other directors in the city of Dessau, until 1932, when it moved to Berlin and was closed by the Nazis in 1933.
Gropius, the first director of the Bauhaus was born in 1833, and hoped to follow the path of his family members and became an Architect. He studied; travelled and eventually returned to Germany where he worked for many years in the offices of several architects.
Gropius soon became director of the Weimar Academy of Fine Arts, which he then restructured into the Bauhaus. In his text The Bauhaus: An Introductory Survey Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack explains the original ideals which Gropius envisioned for the school, which were published in German newspapers in 1919.
These ideals were firmly rooted in the modernist ideal; the embrace of the machine, the rise of consumerism, and the avant-garde. The text also goes on to explain that students, teachers and staff of the Bauhaus were ‘all united in one aim, the seeking of a new way of life’. (Hirschfeld-Mack, 1963, p5)
Gropius left the Bauhaus in 1928, succeeded by Hanns Meyer. Gropius continued his architectural practice unit 1934, where upon he left for England. In 1937, he went to the United States where he became the Chair of Architecture at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard.
The Bauhaus focused primarily on design, architecture and the applied arts; and it became the ‘centre of modern design in Germany.’ (Chilvers, I., et al., 1988, p42) The Bauhaus also concerned itself with effective industrial design which was stylish, cheap and easy to produce in large quantities.
Among the most relevant of the goals of the Bauhaus was to be a ‘unity between the arts’; and a strong encouragement for students to experiment both with ideas and materials. To further this, students were guided by two teachers in every subject, one an artist, the other a craftsman. (Hirschfeld-Mack, 1963, p7)
In the text Artists and Revolution: Dada and the Bauhaus, 1917-1925, Allan C. Greenburg reinforces the fact that the unity between the arts which Gropius discussed intensively created the Bauhaus ‘idea’; which he summarizes as ‘a basis for building towards the future a dynamic spirit of unity, a unity in multiplicity and thereby magnified its creative potential’ (1979, p56) By incorporating ideas and techniques from a variety of disciplines, those at the Bauhaus believed that they would be able to create; or to provide the foundation for a more articulate, efficient and far more descriptive vehicle for visual language to be communicated to the people.
Taking into account the defeat of Germany in the first world war, the and the growing modernist notions of consumerism in established, prosperous nations such as France and England; the Bauhaus focused extensively on industrial design; which was stylish, effective, cheap and easy to produce in large quantities.
This ideal is seen as a socialist one; and the students, teachers and staff of the Bauhaus believed that everyone should be able to use (and own) good, functional design. The negative of this however is a loss of individuality and uniqueness to designed objects.
This can be seen a substantial step to allow the defeated nation of Germany to begin rebuilding itself after the war. Amongst these items were the tubular steel chair, designed by Marcel Breuer.
You might recognise this chair from a myriad of waiting rooms that you’ve sat in throughout your life. I certainly do.
There are a great deal of other fantastic industrial designs that emerged from the Bauhaus, but Breuer’s chair is the most iconic and recognisable.