UPDATE: In honor of the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus, we’re re-publishing this popular infographic, which was originally published April 16th, 2012.
From the “starchitect” to “architecture for the 99%,” we are witnessing a shift of focus in the field of architecture. However, it’s in the education system where these ideas really take root and grow. This sea change inspired us to explore past movements, influenced by economic shifts, war and the introduction of new technologies, and take a closer look at the bauhaus movement.
Often associated with being anti-industrial, the Arts and Crafts Movement had dominated the field before the start of the Bauhaus in 1919. The Bauhaus’ focus was to merge design with industry, providing well-designed products for the many.
The Bauhaus not only impacted design and architecture on an international level, but also revolutionized the way design schools conceptualize education as a means of imparting an integrated design approach where form follows function.
As part of Milan’s Salone del Mobile, Knoll has presented an exhibition celebrating the centenary of the Bauhaus, curated and designed by OMA / Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli with Domitilla Dardi. The story, presented at Knoll’s showroom at Piazza Bertarlelli, is told by means of four clusters that encourage people to participate.
Architectural education has always been fundamentally influenced by whichever styles are popular at a given time, but that relationship flows in the opposite direction as well. All styles must originate somewhere, after all, and revolutionary schools throughout centuries past have functioned as the influencers and generators of their own architectural movements. These schools, progressive in their times, are often founded by discontented experimental minds, looking for something not previously nor currently offered in architectural output or education. Instead, they forge their own way and bring their students along with them. As those students graduate and continue on to practice or become teachers themselves, the school’s influence spreads and a new movement is born.
Every famed design movement has an interesting story of how it managed to influence architecture and design through the years. Despite their impact, not all movements began with the same principles they managed to ultimately lead with, and Bauhaus is no exception. The clean-cut modernist archetype, which has pioneered modern architecture for a century now, was once an experimental design institution of expressionism, unbound creativity, and handcraft, bridging the styles of Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts with Modernist designs.
Celebrate Bauhaus 100 through the world's number one visual storytelling platform, Instagram. An essential tool for designers, Instagram is a constantly growing digital database of market sharing and stimulation. Social media has changed not only how we gather precedents and market our designs, but also our designs themselves. "Instagram Culture" drives designers to create more shareable moments. As we continue to seek these dynamic encounters, let us not forget our forefathers of user experience design and the Bauhaus school.
After the dissolution of the Bauhaus due to Nazi political pressure in April 1933, the ideas, teachings, and philosophies of the school were flung across the world as former students and faculty dispersed in the face of impending war. Of the numerous creative talents associated with the Bauhaus, many went on to notable careers elsewhere. Some made a living as artists or practitioners, others either continued or began careers as teachers themselves - and many did both throughout the course of their lives.
2019 marks a century of Bauhaus, the school-turned-movement whose influence withstood forced relocations, political meddling, and eventual closure. Despite dramatic shifts in technology, taste, and style in architecture in the years since, Bauhaus remains one of the most significant subjects of architectural/design education and has even captured the interest of the wider public.
As part of our celebrations of the Bauhaus movement - and to satiate your thirst to learn more - we have selected some of the best Bauhaus documentaries available online now. Featuring largely-unseen footage, exclusive interviews, and/or unique perspectives on the Bauhaus, these films provide an excellent way to get up to speed.
A bus inspired by the Bauhaus school in Dessau will take to the streets during the school's centenary year to visit four cities around the world. The bus is part of the larger SPINNING TRIANGLES project by SAVVY Contemporary that is curated by Elsa Westreicher. Marking the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus, the project aims to investigate, challenge and act against the neocolonial power structures inherent in design practices, theory and teaching.
Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Albers, Klee, and Breuer are all names that bring to mind the exceptional artistic talent of the Bauhaus school. But an exceptional yet lesser-known aspect of the Bauhaus is that the early 20th-century experimental German art school was one of the first educational institutions that would openly accept qualified women into the program.
Once entered into the program, women were not exactly treated as equals to their male peers, but in 1919 the acceptance of these passionate women was the beginning of a wave of modern female artisans who made significant, yet not as recognized contributions to the Bauhaus movement. An introduction to seven of these women can be found below:
The year 2019 marks the centennial anniversary of the Bauhaus' founding. Founded by Walter Gropius in 1919, the school sought to reimagine material reality. Considered by many to be the most visionary school of early 20th-century art and design, the Bauhaus would spark a global movement in a period of world history otherwise marred by war and economic devastation.
In 1933, The Nazi Party took over Germany and eventually closed the Bauhaus school. Many of the Bauhaus’ leading visionaries emigrated to the United States – bringing the movement with them. László Moholy-Nagy brought the Bauhaus to Chicago, starting a new chapter in the Bauhaus’ history by establishing a school – The New Bauhaus.
One of the most influential 20th-century architecture schools, the Bauhaus experienced its glory days in the city of Dessau between 1925 and 1932. Under the direction of Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the emblematic educational complex was a place for work and housing for some of the most renowned personalities of architecture, design, and art of the last century.
Although the school in Dessau operated for a limited time with few people having the opportunity to experience the prolific environment, it left a deep impact on the architectural production that followed. The buildings that are part of the complex - both in Dessau and Weimar - were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1996 and are now open for visitation.
History has often been taught in a linear way. This way of teaching has often left out grand historical narratives, and focused primarily on the occidental world.
The Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy was one of the most influential thinkers, designers and art educators of the first half of the twentieth century. His experimentation with light, space and form generated international attention. Among those impressed by Moholy-Nagy's work was Walter Gropius, German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School, who made Moholy-Nagy one of the youngest instructors in the history of the Bauhaus. In his time at the Bauhaus, Moholy-Nagy utilized multi-disciplinary art practices to revolutionize abstract artistic media.
Since its foundation in 1919 in Weimar, “Bauhaus” is not just the name of Walter Gropius' legendary school of building – it also stands for unprecedented ideas as well as for having the courage to create the future while considering present global and social issues. The initial purpose was to create a school of building which would achieve a total work of art through its interdisciplinary ways.
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the foundation of Bauhaus, Universal Design will be hosting the architecture competition “The Small House of Universal Design Award” in 2019. Seizing the concept of Germany's “Schrebergärten”, translating
Berlin-based photographer Jean Molitor has been traveling around the world since 2009, tracking the legacy of the Bauhaus. A century after the founding of the school, several generations of architects have confronted or been reared on the innovations of Bauhaus architecture. Trailblazers, allies and heirs to modernism are united by an architectural language generally described as "Bauhaus."
In his Bau1haus project, Molitor focuses on the aesthetics of Bauhaus-influenced architecture across the globe; his pictures make it possible to perceive the continuity of the school's legacy and its architectural language across cultures in a clear fashion.
The idea of a total work of art - Gesamtkunstwerk - guided several schools and movements in the 19th century, including the Bauhaus, which brought the term into the modern era. With the school's unstructured architecture and avant-garde furniture design came new ways of designing clothing, graphics and painting, etc. In the Bauhaus different fields influenced each other, diluting the border between art and industry as they evolved together. When the school was closed 1933 many projects were left unfinished.
In order to revive some of the work begun at the Bauhaus, Adobe launched the Hidden Treasures project to revive five fonts inspired by the original designs of five of the school's masters: Joost Schmidt, Xanti Schawinsky, Reinhold Rossig, Carl Marx and Alfred Arndt.
Penda has released images of its proposed high-rise residential tower in Tel Aviv, featuring brickarches and cascading terraces influenced by the city’s Bauhaus era and the materiality of its Old Town. The 380-foot-high (116-meter-high) scheme will house a range of one to four bedroom apartments, as well as double-height penthouses.
For the scheme’s design, Penda rejected the “generic glass tower” in favor of a form and materiality which responds to Tel Aviv’s sunny Mediterranean climate.
Throughout history, architects have used sketches and paintings to display to their clients the potential outcomes of the projects rattling around their minds. Since Brunelleschi’s adoption of drawn perspective in 1415, architectural visualizations have painted hyper-realistic imaginings of an ideal, where the walls are always clean, the light always shines in the most perfect way, and the inhabitants are always happy.
With technological advances in 3D modeling and digital rendering, this ability to sell an idea through a snapshot of the perfect architectural experience has become almost unrestricted. Many have criticized the dangers of unrealistic renderings that exceed reality and how they can create the illusion of a perfect project when, in fact, it is far from being resolved. However, this is only the natural next step in a history of fantastical representations, where the render becomes a piece of art itself.
Below is a brief history of the interesting ways architects have chosen to depict their projects—from imagined time travel to the diagrammatic.
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