The German design school which gathered ideas from all the
advanced art and design movements, combining and exploring functional problems
in design and machine production. This
is where many modern design and aesthetic students emerged.
Walter Gropius first founded the school which was called
Weimar Art Academy soon after changing the name to Das Staatliche Bauhaus
(literally, the State Home for Building). At the time Germany was in a state of
total upheaval. Its catastrophic defeat in “the war to end all wars” led to
economic, political, and cultural conflict.
A pursuit to create a new social order was a priority over all other
aspects. Its core objective was to rethink the material world to reflect
the unity of all the arts combining architecture, sculpture, and painting into
a single creative expression.
The schools ideals where of simplified forms, functionality, rationality
and the idea that mass production could live in harmony with the artistic
spirit of individuality.
The Bauhaus was based in
3 different locations:
Weimar
Dessau
Berlin
First starting at the
school in Weimar based in the ex building of ‘Arts and Crafts School’ which was
previously run by the Belgian Henri Van de Velde. During this first phase, students where
taught by both craftsmen and artists. At
this stage there was a vivid influence from the Expressionist and Arts and
Crafts Movements. A much more advanced
idea of form, colour and space was integrated in the design portfolio when Der
Bleaue Reiter and painters Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky joined the staff in
1920 and 1922 respectively.
The director Gropius
claimed that a new period of history had started with the end of the war.
His determination in
creating an era of new architectural style reflected in the ideas and results
which Bauhaus was synonymous for. The
style of customer goods and architecture was to be reliable, consistent,
affordable and functional even though mass produced. Hence why Gropius wanted
to reunite art and craft to achieve a high-end functional end product with a
great influence of artistic merit, just as if it was something created in some
artisan cottage out in the countryside.
The job of the designer
and then later the creation of a design course within the Bauhaus came to be
when the Bauhaus wanted to publish a series of books and a magazine. However since there was a lack of quantity of
raw materials, which were readily available in other countries such as the US
and UK, they had to be more creative and rely on the expertise of skilled
persons and the capability to come up with inventive and high quality goods.
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The aims of De Stijl at
first had similar objectives with the Bauhaus and was introduced by Van
Doesburg who wanted to teach position but Gropius didn’t fully believe in his
De Stijl was of geometry and impersonal style, so he was reduced to teaching it
from his home in Weimar.
The School in Weimar was
under the support of the social democrat German state of Thuringia and towards
1923 was suffering from a rise in political tension. Ultimately resulting in a
cut of half of the schools funding making it impossible it to survive. By this
time the Bauhaus was looking for alternative funding sources which then led it
to close Weimar and open in Dessau.
Eventually becoming known as the Technical University of Architecture
and Civil Engineering.
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. [online] last modified on 7 January 2015 at 01:04, Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus [Accessed on the 8th January 2015]
The Metropolitan Museum of Art © 2000–2014, [online] Available at: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bauh/hd_bauh.htm [Accessed on the 8th of January 2015]
Graphic Design History ©2012 US Patent Office & 2009 Creative Commons, [online] Available at: http://www.designhistory.org/Bauhaus_pages/BauhausLocations.html [Accessed on the 8th of January 2015]
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