Important Themes of the Bauhaus Movement (1919-1933)

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STYLE/PERIOD

Bauhaus (translated to “construction house”) is strongly associated with Germany; it originated as a German School of the Arts in the early 20th century. The German architect Walter Gropius (1883-1969) founded the Staatliches Bauhaus school in 1919. Staatliches Bauhaus was a hub for some of Europe’s most experimental creatives. As per the school’s manifesto, Gropius wrote:

Together let us desire, conceive, and create the new structure of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will one day rise toward heaven from the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith.

School’s manifesto (Gropius, Walter, 1919)

By 1922, there was a need for Bauhaus to expand into the outside world and industry and gain further commissions. It did just that, culminating in the famous Bauhaus exhibition ‘Art and Technology – A New Unity’.

Architecture

Architecture was a significant part of the Bauhaus movement (though there was no architecture department in the first few years of the school). In line with the themes of the movement, the architecture strongly featured geometric shapes and an emphasis on the function of design. Its bold, clean lines and functional design strongly influenced modern architecture. The interior design of Bauhaus was known for its simplicity and openness.

Though the school was closed by the Nazis in 1933, the Bauhaus movement continued; it even grew internationally with the emigration of staff and students. Gropius and Marcel Breuer (1902-1981) joined the Harvard University faculty while a new Bauhaus opened in Chicago in 1937 (with Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) becoming the Dean of Architecture at the Armour Institute of Chicago). At this time, Herbert Bayer (1900-1985), an Austrian trained in the Art Nouveau styles before enrolling in Bauhaus, organized a major exhibition at MOMA NYC in 1938-39.

Though the Bauhaus’s original aim to have its work made in mass production did not materialize, the movement as a whole was a huge and defining influence of the twentieth century. In the 1960s, a Bauhaus archive was created with a permanent building completed (1979) to collect, store, preserve, and display the movement’s work.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Today, you will still see the work of Bauhaus in many modern art museums. Notably, the famous Bauhaus Dessau (that houses museums) has become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Furthermore, Tel Aviv boasts of approximately 4,000 Bauhaus-style buildings. These were known to be constructed by Jewish immigrants in the 1930s and were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. UNESCO dubbed it 

a synthesis of outstanding significance of the various trends of the Modern Movement in architecture and town planning in the early part of the 20th century.

UNESCO (Unknown, no date)

Bauhaus continues to be one of the most influential design schools of the twentieth century.

COLORS/THEMES

By 1922, classes included color and form, cabinet making, wood and stone carving, mural painting, printing, metalwork, ceramics, weaving, printing, and theatre. The courses on color and form (taught by Kandinsky and Klee) were considered one of the most important theoretical courses in the school. Bauhaus revolutionized design, from that of decorative Victorian style to an aim for simple and functional buildings and furniture. Below are examples of how My Modern Met and the Tate described the Bauhaus themes and style:

The style of Bauhaus is commonly characterized as a combination of the arts and crafts movement with modernism.

My Modern Met (Rickman-Abdou, Kelly, 2021)

Its aim was to bring art back into contact with everyday life, and architecture, performing arts, design and applied arts were therefore given as much weight as fine art.

Tate (Unknown, no date)

Typical Bauhaus Design Features include:

• Little to no elaborate embellishment or ornamentation.
• Focus on balanced forms and abstract shapes (functional shapes).
• Geometric abstraction: Simple geometric shapes (like rectangles and spheres) with abstract shapes used sparingly.
• Bold and clean lines.
• Plain, simple, and functional (high-end and functional products with artistic merit). 
• Cheap and consistent with mass production.
• Simple color schemes: For example, bright, bold, and restrained color palettes. Primary colors were often used in Bauhaus design.
• Collage graphics.
• Experimental layouts and ‘broken’ grids.
• Use of new materials and technology.
• Modern and Minimalistic: There was more of a focus and study of basic elements of the design, such as colors and shapes. The style of Bauhaus was stripped back to essential elements.
• Geometric and minimalist typography: Sans serif was the most commonly used typeface. Type placement became dynamic and expressive, invoking energy and movement. Minimalist typography was popular (see Universal Typeface by Bayer).
• Industrial materials: Retain the integrity of craft materials (i.e. retain natural form: not altered).
• Buildings, furniture, and fonts often included rectangular features and rounded corners/walls.
• Holistic Design: There was a purpose for every element of life within Bauhaus. This type of design was in city design, architecture, furniture, appliances, and typography.
• Visually Balanced Asymmetry: This often led to the same materials, shapes, and colors used in a design. For example, the landmark Bauhaus building in Dessau uses different shapes and angles while still being cohesively brought together through its use of white paint.

Example of Bauhaus Style: Poster Design

The below poster design by Joost Schmidt (1923) perfectly demonstrates many of the attributes of the Bauhaus style (Visually balanced, experimental layout, geometric shapes, simple color scheme, little ornamentation, bold clean lines, etc.).

MAIN PRACTITIONERS

The School faculty had several famous artists who offered their expertise as instructors. These included Josef Albers (1888-1976), Swiss painter Paul Klee (1879-1940), and Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) who joined in 1922. 1922 saw a visit to the Bauhaus by Russian Constructivist artist and architect El Lissitzky (1890-1941). Concerning the gathering of this extraordinary group of artists, Artsy quoted Gropius as declaring:

We must not start with mediocrity…It is our duty to enlist powerful famous personalities whenever possible, even if we do not yet fully understand them.

Artsy (Chernick, Karen, 2019)

Walter Gropius

Gropius was close to the Expressionist painters; this is evident in how the Bauhaus manifesto cover was composed of a woodcut by Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956) – a painter associated with Der Blaue Reiter. Furthermore, Gropius cited (in his essay ‘Concept and Development of the State Bauhaus’ 1924) influences on his thinking as John Ruskin and William Morris of the arts and crafts movement. However, unlike the romanticism of the arts and crafts movement, Bauhaus would be more focused on urban, technological, and mass production.

Paul Klee

Paul Klee is also a significant figure of Bauhaus. He taught bookbinding, painting, and stained glass production (amongst others) at the school. Klee was a Swiss musician and artist. Music had a strong influence on his art. He experimented with theories on the connection of color to music and looked at form, color, and space.

Wassily Kandinsky 

Wassily Kandinsky is one of the most famous artists of this period. He pioneered Russian art and theory and is considered one of the pioneers of Abstract art. Kandinsky was a member of the Blue Rider group of artists and taught painting and art theory at Bauhaus from 1922 until its closure in 1933.

Marcel Breuer

Breuer, who was head of a cabinet-making workshop of Bauhaus (Dessau), is famous for creating the foldable, lightweight Wassily chair (named after Wassily Kandinsky). Breuer sought to create minimalistic and mass-producible pieces that were mostly of metal.

Women

Connew and Kerr’s article in Designer Speak Up (2018) notes that though Gropius had stated that the college was open to any person of good reputation, regardless of age or sex, there were still limitations on the subjects women studied in the school. Textiles and weaving were the main disciplines accessible to women.

However, this failed to stop many women in the school from flourishing in areas that were accessible to them. Annie Albers (1899-1994) created beautiful weavings and is known for introducing new technologies and abstract modernism into weavings. Marianne Brandt (1893-1935) was one of the few who managed to diverge from textiles and weaving and was allowed access to the metal workshop. Gertrud Arndt (1903-2000) initially studied weaving but became one of the pioneers of self-portrait photography. Also, Alma Siedhoff-Buscher (1899-1944) originally studied weaving but eventually turned to wood sculpture. Her ship-building game is still available to buy today. Gunta Stolzl (1897-1983) was a master of weaving and credited with transitioning from personal textile to modern industrial textile works.

FORCES THAT SHAPED THE MOVEMENT

The school was founded following World War I when there was a renewed spirit for experimentation in the arts. It was a time when Germany was turning from Expressionism to practical New Objectivity. Gropius founded the school in response to the rapid industrialization occurring at the time. He considered this rapid change to be lacking in artistic quality or humanity. He wished to merge and integrate the fine arts with the applied arts and art with industrialization. The school combined the topics of architecture, crafts, and arts. It hoped to unite all of the arts together and combine the principles of mass production with individual artistic vision, enabling them to create products that were both artistic and commercial. The Modernism movement, originating in the 1880s, had a strong influence on Bauhaus.

Political upheaval

State funding from the government was withdrawn from the school in 1925 during a political climate move to the right. The school moved to Dessau (1925-1932), with the onboarding of many new staff (including Joost Schmidt (1893-1948) and Josef Albers, the German-born American artist and educator). The school started to focus on architecture in the work.

Furniture and working with glass were work that Josef Albers specialized in. Albers is known for having one of the most influential art education programs of the 20th Century. See below for his Nesting Tables 1926-27. He is also famous for the Bauhaus typeface Kombinationschrift.

Development of Bauhaus Design

A new Bauhaus design was established, following a renewed style and a new architecture department (led by Swiss architect Hannes Meyer (1889-1954)). Its visual identity and philosophy developed into what we know today. Examples of this include Bayers Universal lowercase sans-serif type (1925). Bayers cited it as an idealist typeface – composed of a simple geometric sans-serif font. Other examples include Breuer’s tubular steel furniture and the social housing project undertaken by the architecture department (1927-28). Bayers’s belief in typography (such as serifs being pointless and simplifying typesetting and typewriter keyboard layout) formed a part of the Bauhaus belief to set forth basic principles of typographic communication. These beliefs eventually led to The New Typography.

Gropius resigned in 1928 and returned to private practice. He appointed his successor as Hannes Meyer (1889-1954). Meyers’s work sought to shape a harmonious society. This new direction and leadership, focusing on architecture and industrial design, led to a somewhat turbulent time within the school with the resignation of several colleagues (including Bayer and Breuer). New programs such as photography, town planning, and guest lectures on, for example, sociology and Marxist political theory, started to be included.

During Meyers’s directorship, the school became a commercial success, with wallpaper design going into production, the manufacturing of lamps, and many other commissions obtained. However, Dempsey (2002, p. 133) outlines how Meyers’s Marxist politics soon alienated him from the local government and he was forced to resign in 1930, to be replaced by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969).  

School Closure

Mies van der Rohe attempted to distance the school from politics. Unfortunately, in 1932, the school was accused of being too cosmopolitan, with its grant canceled. The school moved to Berlin as a private institution. However, the Nazi regime forced the closure of the school (1933) during World War II. This closure led to the international spread of the style due to students fleeing the city and traveling to other locations such as the United States and the Middle East.

ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS

Though functional and fitting the need for industrialized design, I find Bauhaus architecture can sometimes be cold compared to the arts and crafts and the De Stijl movement.

However, I very much enjoy Bauhaus paintings, posters, and prints. I can see similarities to De Stijl through its use of primary colors, lack of ornamentation, and the balance found in the work. I especially enjoy the work of Wassily Kandinsky.

Typography

Jan Tschichold visited the first Weimer Bauhaus exhibition and was strongly influenced by the Bauhaus approach to typography. He became a leading advocate of Modernist design – his most famous work being Die Neue Typographie (“The New Typography”). His typography work was rational without decoration/embellishments and stripped of unessential elements. He favored photography rather than illustration due to its precision. However, Nazis arrested him in 1933, accusing him of creating “un-German” typography. He thus fled to Basel. During the 1940s, Tschichold led an international revival of Traditional typography (working with, for example, Penguin books in London).

SIMILARITIES TO CONTEMPORARY DESIGN/DESIGNERS?

Many schools around the world started to use similar class structures to Bauhaus. I often still see Bauhaus-style prints for sale today. Its grid effect is still used on many brochures and posters today. Elements of Bauhaus are often seen in logo designs. Bauhaus has influenced abstract sculpture, avant-garde collages, art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design, and typography.

One of its biggest influences is modern architecture and furniture design (where it aims to bring function, simplicity, and beauty together). For example, we see this in some modern-day interior designs that focus on incorporating the fewest materials possible (including glass, steel, and concrete). We especially see its influence in the Scandinavian minimalism style. Also, we see it in current-day homes with open-plan living, fitted kitchens, folding chairs, and flat-pack furniture. Ikea is one of the most obvious where one will find Bauhaus-influenced items. However, I wanted to find something less obvious as a modern-day comparison….

Moshe Safdie

Due to its (Bauhaus) influence on architecture, I searched for the most famous current-day architects and discovered the work of Moshe Safdie. I believe his work to have similar features to Bauhaus.

Upon further study, it was interesting to note that in an interview with Jim Donaldson (1997), Safdie stated: 

It was sort of Bauhaus and white and all the forms that I grew up within Israel. You know, I grew up in a Bauhaus city. I grew up in a Bauhaus house. I mean they were all sort of white, curvy balconies and strip windows and all that. And I did one of those. 

Interview with Jim Donaldson, (Safdue, Moshe, 1997)

Due to his background growing up in a Bauhaus city, this is likely why I see some similarities between his work and that of Bauhaus. See above (Fig 5) for his work on Habitat 1967 and below (Fig 6) Serena del Mar Hospital, Columbia (in construction).

REVIEW SIMILARITIES & DIFFERENCES TO A CONTEMPORARY WORK

I looked to Serena del Mar Hospital (Safdie Architects) for a contemporary design that I believe demonstrates influence from Bauhaus. Scroll through the below gallery for images of this Hospital architectecture and interior design.

Fig 6.1 – 6.6 (Serena del Mar Hospital)

What is the Product and its Use?

Architecture: A Hospital

What Influence/s does it take?

• Use of concrete.
• Geometric combinations in the style. For example, a grid style to the building / interlocking forms.
• Functional: Simple yet pleasant design and functional for a hospital.
• Open plan. For example, the large open area in the main lobby.
• Visually Balanced Asymmetry. This asymmetry can be seen in the different buildings that are attached. Even though there are several buildings, it is visually pleasing due to the similar structure.
• Holistic design: Seen in the greenery integrated throughout the design.
• A rounded corner on the building (Fig 6.6).
• There is a lot of glass in certain sections of the building.

Find a Historical Comparison to Contrast it with:

I chose 29 Idelson Street, Tel Aviv. Though it is very different in size to Serena del Mar Hospital, I can see the below similarities:

• A geometric block shape with a rounded corner is used in both structures. 
• Functionality: Both are functional for their use.
• Simplicity in their design.
• Balance is found throughout their design (especially noticeable in the well-balanced arrangement of the windows). 
• Both designs focus on holistic living: This is seen through the greenery surrounding both structures.

How does it Differ from the Movement?

• It does not include primary colors within its design (though much of the architecture of Bauhaus did not incorporate this either).
• The Serena Del Mar Hospital does not have very much glass around parts of the exterior of the building (likely due to patients and work occurring in the building). However, the lobby and waiting areas incorporate glass.
• It does not incorporate a lot of rounded corners in its design.

PICTOGRAPHY

Fig 1: Anonymous, (no date), Bauhaus Building. Available at https://www.bauhaus-dessau.de/en/venues/bauhaus-building/ (Accessed: 20 March 2024)

Fig 2: Anonymous, (no date), Joost Schmidt Staatliches Bauhaus Ausstellung 1923. Available at https://www.bauhauskooperation.com/knowledge/the-bauhaus/works/graphic-printshop/poster-for-the-1923-bauhaus-exhibition-in-weimar/ (Accessed: 09 August 2021)

Fig 3: Anonymous, (no date), Marcel Breuer “Wassily” Armchair, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Available at https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/485067 (Accessed: 20 March 2024)

Fig 4: Anonymous, (no date), Josef Albers Stacking tables ca.1927. Available at https://store.moma.org/en-ie/products/albers-nesting-tables (Accessed: 20 March 2024)

Fig 5: Anonymous, (no date), Yen VY Vo – Habitat 67, Available at https://graphicdesign.dawsoncollege.qc.ca/2015/vo_yenvy/punctuation.html (Accessed: 25 May 2021)

Fig 6.1-6: Anonymous, (no date), Safdie Architects: Serena del Mar Hospital, Colombia. Available at https://productspec.co.nz/en/articles/safdie-architects-serena-del-mar-hospital-colombia/ (Accessed: 25 May 2021)

Fig 7 Anonymous (Image Courtesy Bauhaus Center Tel Aviv), (no date), 29 Idelson Street. Available at https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabellekliger/2021/01/26/in-pictures-10-of-the-most-iconic-bauhaus-buildings-in-tel-aviv/?sh=151dc29b5bf9 (Accessed: 25 May 2021)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gropius, Walter, “BAUHAUS MANIFESTO 1919” [on-line], no date. Available at http://gropius.house/location/bauhaus-manifesto/ (Accessed: 22 May 2021)

Warkentin, Elizabeth, (2019), “How Did Tel Aviv Become a Beacon For Stunning Bauhaus Architecture?”, Architectural Digest, 25 September. Available at https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/how-did-tel-aviv-become-beacon-stunning-bauhaus-architecture#:~:text=Though%20it%20may%20be%20unknown,collection%20of%20Bauhaus%2Dinspired%20buildings (Accessed: 22 May 2021)

Anonymous – UNESCO, “White City of Tel-Aviv – the Modern Movement”, (no date). Available at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1096/ (Accessed: 22 May 2021)

Richman-Abdou, Kelly, “Bauhaus: How the Avant-Garde Movement Transformed Modern Art”, (2021). Available at https://mymodernmet.com/what-is-bauhaus-art-movement/#:~:text=The%20style%20of%20Bauhaus%20is,evident%20in%20painting%2C%20architecture%2C%20or (Accessed: 22 May 2021)

Anonymous – Tate UK, “Art Term Bauhaus”, (no date). Available at https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/b/bauhaus (Accessed: 22 May 2021)

Chernick, Karen, “The Bauhaus Has Shaped Our World for 100 Years”, (2019). Available at https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-bauhaus-shaped-100-years (Accessed: 22 May 2021)

Connew, Alice and Kerr, Katie, “A Trip to the Bauhaus Reflecting on a century of women in Design”, 2018. Available at https://designersspeakup.nz/2018/08/24/a-trip-to-the-bauhaus-reflecting-on-a-century-of-women-in-design/ (Accessed: 22 May 2021)

Dempsey, Amy, (2002), Styles, Schools and Movements, Thames & Hudson Ltd, London

Donaldson, Jim, (1997), Moshe Safdie interview, Magill, 12 November. Available at https://www.mcgill.ca/architecture/alumni/aluminterviews/safdie (Accessed: 22 May 2021)

Gorman, Isobel, (2021), Graphic Design Certificate slides, Dublin Institute of Design