BAUHAUSBoth pragmatic and idealistic, the school sought contracts with industry in order to become more self-supporting, but also to fulfil the basic principal that beautifully designed objects would bring about a better world. Karen KoehlerThe Bauhaus (191933) is widely considered as the most important school of art and design of the 20th century. Founded by the German architect Walter Gropius in the provincial town of Weimar also the centre of the new republican government the Bauhaus quickly established its reputation as the leading and most progressive centre of the international avant-garde. Gropius sought to do away with traditional distinctions between the fine arts and craft, and to forge an entirely new kind of creative designer, skilled in both the conceptual aesthetics of art and the technical skills of handcrafts. Students were assigned to a workshop in metals, ceramics, textiles, wood, printmaking or wall painting where they progressed from apprentice, to journeyman, to master craftsman. Key examples of the Bauhaus and its approaches are presented here.From the outset, the school was considered to be both politically and artistically radical. In 1925, authorities forced the school to close in Weimar because of its perceived cultural bolshevism. The Bauhaus relocated to the industrial city of Dessau and in 1928 the architect Hannes Meyer took over as director. Growing political pressure forced the Bauhaus to move again, this time to Berlin in 1932. The Nazis closed the Bauhaus permanently in 1933 after police raided what had essentially become a school of architecture under the direction of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Bauhaus: school building at Dessau, GermanyGeneral Photographic Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images school of design,architecture, and applied arts that existed inGermanyfrom 1919 to 1933. It was based in Weimar until 1925,Dessauthrough 1932, andBerlinin its final months. The Bauhaus was founded by the architect WalterGropius, who combined two schools, the Weimar Academy of Arts and the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts, into what he called the Bauhaus, or house of building, a name derived by inverting the German wordHausbau,building of a house. Gropius house of building included the teaching of various crafts, which he saw as allied toarchitecture, the matrix of the arts. By training students equally inartand in technically expert craftsmanship, the Bauhaus sought to end the schism between the two.Beginning in the mid-19th century, reformers led by the English designerWilliam Morrishad sought to bridge the same division by emphasizing high-quality handicrafts in combination with design appropriate to its purpose. By the last decade of that century, these efforts had led to theArts and Crafts Movement. While extending the Arts and Crafts attentiveness to good design for every aspect of daily living, the forward-looking Bauhaus rejected the Arts and Crafts emphasis on individually executed luxury objects. Realizing that machine production had to be the precondition of design if that effort was to have any impact in the 20th century, Gropius directed the schools design efforts towardmassmanufacture. On the example of Gropius ideal, modern designers have since thought in terms of producing functional and aesthetically pleasing objects for mass society rather than individual items for a wealthy elite.Before being admitted to the workshops, students at the Bauhaus were required to take a six-month preliminary course taught variously by Johannes Itten,Josef Albers, andLszl Moholy-Nagy. The workshopscarpentry, metal, pottery, stained glass, wall painting, weaving, graphics,typography, and stagecraftwere generally taught by two people: an artist (called the Form Master), who emphasized theory, and a craftsman, who emphasized techniques and technical processes. After three years of workshop instruction, the student received a journeymans diploma.The Bauhaus included among its faculty several outstanding artists of the 20th century. In addition to the above-mentioned, some of its teachers werePaul Klee(stained-glass and painting),Wassily Kandinsky(wall painting),Lyonel Feininger(graphic arts), Oskar Schlemmer (stagecraft and also sculpture),Marcel Breuer(interiors),Herbert Bayer(typography and advertising),Gerhard Marcks(pottery), and Georg Muche (weaving). A severe but elegant geometric style carried out with great economy of means has been considered characteristic of the Bauhaus, though in fact the works produced were richly diverse.Although Bauhaus members had been involved in architectural work from 1919 (notably, the construction in Dessau of administrative, educational, and residential quarters designed by Gropius), the department of architecture, central to Gropius program in founding this unique school, was not established until 1927;Hannes Meyer, a Swiss architect, was appointed chairman. Upon Gropius resignation the following year, Meyer became director of the Bauhaus until 1930. He was asked to resign because of his left-wing political views, which brought him into conflict with Dessau authorities.Ludwig Mies van der Rohe became the new director until the Nazi regime forced the school to close in 1933.The Bauhaus had far-reaching influence. Its workshop products were widely reproduced, and widespread acceptance of functional, unornamented designs for objects of daily use owes much to Bauhaus precept and example. Bauhaus teaching methods and ideals were transmitted throughout the world by faculty and students. Today, nearly every art curriculum includes foundation courses in which, on the Bauhaus model, students learn about the fundamental elements of design. Among the best known of Bauhaus-inspired educational efforts was the achievement ofMoholy-Nagy, who founded the New Bauhaus (later renamed the Institute of Design) in Chicago in 1937, the same year in which Gropius was appointed chairman of the Harvard School of Architecture. A year later Mies moved to Chicago to head the department of architecture at theIllinois Institute of Technology(then known as the Armour Institute), and eventually he designed its new campus.

BauhausDessau

Bauhaus(1919-1933)

The Bauhaus occupies a place of its own in the history of 20th century culture, architecture, design, art and new media. One of the first schools of design, it brought together a number of the most outstanding contemporary architects and artists and wasnot only an innovative training centre but also a place of production and a focus of international debate. At a time when industrial society was in the grip of a crisis, the Bauhaus stood almost alone in asking how the modernisation process could bemastered by means of design.Architecture at the Bauhaus

"The building is the ultimate goal of all fine art, the Bauhaus manifesto proclaimed back in 1919. Architecture training at the Bauhaus in Weimar was initially the prerogative of Walter Gropius private architectural practice and for a short time courses were run by his partner Adolf Meyer and in association with the "Baugewerkschule" (building trades school) in Weimar. The Bauhaus workshops were involved in these efforts through Gropiuss office. This collaboration produced the Haus Am Horn and other buildings in 1923. Plans for a Bauhaus estate remained unimplemented. Some new methods based on specific types and standardisation were employed not only to produce newarchitecture but to anticipate a new lifestyle through this architecture.

Although the Bauhaus lacked an architecture department, it was the buildings designed in Gropiuss office and erected from 1925 onwards among which the Bauhaus buildingitself and the Masters Houses enjoy pride of place which dominated the image of the years in Dessau right from the outset. In 1927 Walter Gropius offered Hannes Meyer aposition in charge of architecture classes. That year Hannes Meyer began to put together a curriculum which included all relevant subjects such as planning, design,draftsmanship, construction, town planning. Architecture for Walter Gropius and Hannes Meyer alike mainly denoted the "design of lifes processes". Hannes Meyer went far beyond Gropiuss "study of essentials, which focused too much on the object for his taste, turning his teaching programme into one where the concrete conditions in society and the factors determining architecture and its use formed the starting point for allplanning and design. The habits of the future residents of an estate or a house were studied in scientific detail. Students from various years worked together in "verticalbrigades on the design and erection of buildings such as the balcony access houses in Dessau and the labour unions school in Bernau near Berlin. Carl Fieger, the engineerFriedrich Khn, Hans Wittwer, Ludwig Hilberseimer, Anton Brenner, Alcar Rudelt and Mart Stam taught in the architecture department.

From 1930 to 1933 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe carried on with much of what had been started under his predecessors. The retention of teachers like Ludwig Hilberseimer helped to ensure a certain continuity after the change of director. At the same time Miesvan der Rohe streamlined the curriculum to produce something like a system of courses which left almost no room for utopian experiments. The majority of the new studentintake at the Bauhaus had already completed a course of studies, and the Bauhaus became a "postgraduate school" (Wolsdorff, Bauhaus archive berlin). Mies van der Rohes teaching focused on the design of specific buildings whose appearance owednothing to Gropiuss "study of essentials or to the collective satisfaction of the peoples needs, but which were to be "the spatial implementation of intellectual decisions (Mies van der Rohe) in an aesthetically consummate fashion.

Modernism first emerged in the early twentieth century, and by the 1920s, the prominent figures of the movement Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe - had established their reputations. However it was not until after the Second World War that it gained mass popularity, after modernist planning was implemented as a solution to the previous failure of architecture and design to meet basic social needs. During the 1930s as much as 15% of the urban populations were living in poverty, and slum clearance was one of the many social problems of this decade.[1]Modernist planning was a popular idea, and used as a solution to these problems. But the movement could not adequately comprehend and cater for the social dynamics of family and community, and a result, many modernist buildings were pulled down in the seventies. With reference to key architectural studies, this essay discusses the principles of modernism, how modernist architects initially worked to solve design problems through the creation of urban utopias, and why the ambitious modernist dream ultimately failed.Students at the Bauhaus school of design were taught purity of form and to design for a better world by Walter Gropius. The phrase form follows function is often used when discussing the principles of modernism. It asserts that forms should be simplified architectural designs should bear no more ornament than is necessary to function. Modernists believe that ornament should follow the structure and purpose of the building. Family life and social interaction was at the centre of the modernist dream for a planned environment. The vision was for trouble free areas by mixing blocks with terraces to create squares, zoning services and amenities, all interlinked by roads.[2]The modernists planned for zoned areas where residential and commercial amenities were distinct and separate. In his introduction toModernism in Design,Paul Greenhalgh outlined key features in modernist design including function, progress, anti-historicism and social morality.[3]These principles can be found in many of the key realisations of the modernist dream Le Corbusiers famous Villa Savoye in Poissy,Franceis a prime example. It shows no reference to historic architectural design; the pioneering plan was a progressive leap for the late 1920s. The form clearly follows the intended functions of the residential building, bearing no unnecessary ornament, and the open space surrounding the structure as well as the open plan interior lends itself to the ideals of social living and communication. The modernist ideals were not applied to social housing until 1937, when Maxwell Frys Kensal House in London applied the principles of the movement to a social housing scheme. It was a success and is still popular with its residents today. It then became the prototype for other social housing projects to follow the example of modern living.

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