Bauhaus

Lecture at the British Museum

Bauhaus means building. Bauhaus School of Design Center opened in 1919 in Weimer by Walter Gropius, radical architect. It moved to Dessau in 25 due to the pressure of the Nazis and closed in Berlin in 33. Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy (fond of Russian Constructivism), Albers and Breuer (furniture designer) taught there. Synonymous with modern design

• Minimalist furniture
• Pioneered new materials
• Form following function
• Modernist philosophy
• Reacting against excess decoration and to cluttered Victorian bourgeois home

Foundation course: cross media cross art forms, combine fine arts and crafts

Bauhaus had good PR – Gropius – publications

Ver Boon (sp?) group – art, arch, industrialists

No division btw student and master

Form master and craft master had same status but craft master was 2^nd in command

Weimar: small town of 40,000 people, traditional town, center of New National Assembly

Marcs – master of sculptor workshop out in the country, successful turnout of pottery, banned during Nazi period.

    Bauhaus Origins, Important Influences

Peter Behrens, architect, tea set goes with the room goes with the house: Total Design. Ok with mass production, industrialization. 1901? Exhibit of a series of model houses all fully furnished. Ended up as a design consltant for the General Electric Company. Created a pervasive concept design for the factory to the business card.

Vandewell, Belgium, worked in Germany, moved to Weimer – Art Nouveau (started 1890’s) a symetrical shapes, flowing lines.

Mackintosh Scottish was in style, out of style, then at end of career popular again late 50’s early 60’s. Celtic, Medieval, Continental influence