Bauhaus (1919-1933) Read online

  Authors: Michael Siebenbrodt and Lutz Schöbe

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  Photographical credits:

  Abbreviations:

  BHA Bauhaus-Archiv, Museum für Gestaltung, Berlin

  SBHD Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau

  SWKK Stiftung Weimarer Klassik und Kunstsammlungen

  Photograph Louis Held

  Photograph Hugo Erfurt

  Unknown photographer

  Unknown photographer

  Photograph Lucia Moholy

  Unknown photographer

  Unknown photographer

  Unknown photographer

  Photograph Emil Theiß, Stadtarchiv Dessau

  Photograph Howard Dearstyne

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Photograph Umbo (Otto Umbehr)

  BHA

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Photograph Louis Held Workshop

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Photograph Wolfgang Kleber, HOCHTIEF Essen / Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie Dessau / Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau

&nbs
p; Photograph Gunter Lepkrowski, BHA

  Unknown photographer

  © Bühnen-Archiv Oskar Schlemmer, Sekretariat, I- 28824 Oggebbio

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Photograph Edmund Collein or Heinz Loew, BHA

  Unknown photographer, SBHD

  Photograph Gunter Lepkrowski, BHA

  Photograph Heinz Loew or Joost Schmidt

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Photograph Erich Consemüller

  Unknown photographer, SBHD

  Photograph Walter Peterhans

  Unknown photographer

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Unknown photographer, SWKK

  Reno/Foto-Atelier Louis Held, Bauhaus-Museum, Kunstsammlungen zu Weimar (KW)

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Photograph Marburg

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Photograph Gunter Lepkowski, BHA

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Kicken, Berlin/Phyllis Umbehr, BHA

  Unknown photographer, SWKK

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Unknown photographer, SWKK

  Unknown photographer, SWKK

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Unknown photographer, SWKK

  Photograph Erich Consemüller

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Photograph Jost Schilgen, BHA

  Photograph Marianne Brandt

  Universität zu Köln/Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung

  Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Puppentheatersammlung, 1957

  Unknown photographer, SWKK

  Unknown photographer, BHA

  Universität zu Köln/Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung

  Harvard Art Museum

  Germanisches Nationalmuseum

  Universität zu Köln/Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung

  © Bühnen-Archiv Oskar Schlemmer, Sekretariat, I- 28824 Oggebbio

  Photograph Erich Consemüller,

  © Bühnen-Archiv Oskar Schlemmer, Sekretariat, I- 28824 Oggebbio

  Photograph Lux Feininger,

  © Bühnen-Archiv Oskar Schlemmer, Sekretariat, I- 28824 Oggebbio

  Photograph Lux Feininger,

  © Bühnen-Archiv Oskar Schlemmer, Sekretariat, I- 28824 Oggebbio

  Photograph Erich Consemüller, © -Bühnen-Archiv Oskar Schlemmer, Sekretariat, I- 28824 Oggebbio

  Photograph Marianne Brandt, BHA

  Unknown photographer, BHA

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  All rights reserved, SWKK

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  All rights reserved, SBHD

  All rights reserved, Stiftung Meisterhäuser Dessau

  All rights reserved, SBHD

  All rights reserved, SBHD

  All rights reserved, BHA

  All rights reserved, SBHD

  gta archives / ETH Zurich: bequest of Hannes Meyer

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  All rights reserved

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  BHA

  SWKK

  SWKK

  Photograph Paula Stockmar, BHA

  Unknown photographer: SWKK

  Photograph Lucia Moholy, BHA

  Photograph Hajo Rose, BHA

  Photograph Edmund Collein, SBHD

  Photograph Irene Bayer, SBHD

  Photograph Erich Consemüller, BHA

  Photograph Erich Consemüller, private collection

  All rights reserved.

  No parts of this publication may be reproduced or adapted without the permission of the copyright holder, throughout the world. Unless otherwise specified, copyright on the works reproduced lies with the respective photographers. Despite intensive research, it has not always been possible to establish copyright ownership. Where this is the case, we would appreciate notification.

  ISBN: 978-1-78310-705-6

  1919-1933 Weimar-Dessau-Berlin

  Michael Siebenbrodt

  & Lutz Schöbe

  Contents

  Preface

  History of the Bauhaus

  Forerunners, Roots and History

  Art School Reform

  Ruskin, Olbrich and Others

  Deutscher Werkbund (German Association of Craftsmen)

  De Stijl, Blauer Reiter (Blue Rider) and Der Sturm

  The Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar (1919 to 1925)

  Between Vision and Reality: The 1919 to 1920 Construction Phase

  On the Way to [Becoming] the Modern Academy of Design: The 1921-1922 Formation Phase

  “Art and Technology–A New Unity” and the 1923 Bauhaus Exhibition

  Bauhaus Dessau: Academy for Design (1925 to 1932)

  The Bauhaus Becomes an Academy

  Laboratories for Industry – Workshop Work

  Planning and Building

  The Hannes Meyer Era

  The Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Era

  The Closure of the Bauhaus in Dessau

  Bauhaus Berlin: Free Education and Research Institute (1932-1933)

  The Closure of the Bauhaus in Berlin

  Preparatory Course and Basic Design Education

  The Preparatory Course

  Wassily Kandinsky’s Course

  Paul Klee’s Course

  Oskar Schlemmer’s Course

  Joost Schmidt’s Course

  The Workshops Pottery Workshop

  Bookbinding

  Stained Glass Painting Workshop

  Graphic Print Shop

  Typography/Printing and Advertising Workshop

  Mural Painting Workshop

  Stone Sculpting and Woodcarving/Plastic Workshop

  Weaving Workshop

  Carpentry/Furniture Workshop

  Metal Workshop

  Theatre Workshop

  Architecture/Building Studies/ Building Department

  Photography/Photo Workshop

  The Photography Workshop

  Fine Arts

  Life and Work

  Effect and Reaction

  Bauhaus and the Third Reich

  The Bauhaus and the United States

  The Bauhaus and the Soviet Union

  The Bauhaus and the Federal Republic of Germany

  Bauhaus and the GDR (German Democratic Republic)

  Bauhaus in Reunified Germany

  Bauhaus: A Creative Method

  Chronology

  Bibliography

  Bauhaus – Archives, Collections and Museums

  Index

  Notes

  Preface

  The Bauhaus was one of the most important and momentous cultural manifestations of the twentieth century. There is no doubt about it. It is more than ever a phenomenon of global dimensions. Today, the Bauhaus is embedded in the public consciousness; it is held in high esteem and, depending on one’s interests, occasionally glorified or denounced. But recognition and positive esteem are prevalent. The work of the Bauhaus artists enjoys universal admiration and interest in the great museums of the world. Their creative theories, if often taken out of their complex context, received and continue to receive attention in many renowned architectural and art education institutes, as well as in basic art lessons in education facilities. Bauhaus products – such as Marcel Breuer’s famous tubular steel furniture – proceeded to become highly-traded design classics. Bauhaus buildings, such as the sites in Weimar and Dessau, are considered pieces of architectural history, and today they are part of Germany’s cultural heritage. The Bauhaus went down in art history as the original modernist art school.

  Now, almost a century after its foundation, it is still current. This is evident not only in the increased institutional interest in the school’s work, an exhibition boom that hasn’t worn off, and a
multitude of new publications and unending media interest, but also in the area of theoretical architectural research, in which investigations into functionalism, a design concept closely connected to the Bauhaus, are on the increase. The creation of a new man for a new, more humane society was the Bauhaus’s true goal. It remains historically unfulfilled. Are we to understand the intervention by philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas regarding “modernism as an unfinished project” in this way, too?

  This book limits itself to portraying the history of the Bauhaus in a more or less rough overview. The authors can thus make reference to a multitude of existing publications as well as to their own published writings on the subject. The claim is not to subject the Bauhaus to criticism on principle from a twenty-first century perspective but rather the intention simply to portray what was, in an objective argument of the most important points and with no claim to exhaustiveness, for this book is intended for the interested reader and not the knowledgeable expert. If this leads to the break up of unilateral ways of viewing the Bauhaus, that harmonious, consistent, conflict-free, “progressive” and non-traditional organisaton, the authors will consider themselves lucky.

  The portrayal begins with references to the forerunners of the Bauhaus, places it in the context of the events of its time and describes the circumstances leading up to its foundation. In a brief overview, the authors present the internal structure of the school and its individual sites in Weimar, Dessau and Berlin, as well as the conceptions of its three directors, Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The following chapters inform the reader about the teaching and training structure of the Bauhaus and present the teaching concepts of its most important teachers. Attention is given to the Bauhaus workshops, their respective structures, the spectrum of achievements and the modifications by the different directors. These are followed by short chapters on general matters such as architecture, photography and visual arts in the Bauhaus, as well as on life and work at the school. A short overview of the effects and reception of the Bauhaus from its beginnings to the present forms the conclusion.

  Special emphasis is placed on promoting the comprehension of connections, consequences, mutual influences and developments in a sequence of selected and matched images. In this way, the reader may have visual access to the Bauhaus through the language of its time.

  The appendix, with its compressed chronology summarising the history of the Bauhaus and evoking parallel events in culture, politics, technology and science, allows for individual conclusions and the identification of links and references not included in the text.