Bauhaus pioneer history movement

The Bauhaus movement emerged as brothers and architects began to restore a war-ravaged Europe and gradually became a design style.

'If the German army wins the battle, we probably will not have the Bauhaus, an art created by the defeat of Germany in the war.'

There was a huge amount of pent-up energy in Lyonel Feininger 's famous Kathedrale wood carving, which was used as the cover of Walter Gropius 's manifesto for the Bauhaus opening ceremony in 1919.

The Feininger Church in the painting does not have a rigid, boring and harsh style but is a vivid combination of contrasts and movements - a vision of the future. Architecture, lighting and music, the three guiding elements of the Bauhaus are here.

Lyonel Feininger's Kathedrale wood carving.(Photo: Bauhaus 100).

So what is Bauhaus?

Simply put, this is the name of an art school founded in order to express the opposition to old European art. It developed an abstract and explosive language of design and art, escaping from history. In 1923, Gropius said, 'The concept of the world today is clear, but its shape is still vague' . The motto of the Bauhaus, which makes it a more philosophy of life than a teaching school, is the combination of a modern and aesthetic in the physical form.

'Bauhaus' , a word that sounds strange but gradually becomes popular - even this is the name of a rock group - derived from the word bauen , meaning constructivism, and haus , meaning a spiritual home. This is a concept that represents the great role and power of architects and artists in rebuilding a devastated Europe after the First World War. If the German army wins the battle, we probably won't have the Bauhaus, an art created from the German defeat in the war. Homes created by human hands contain psychological, gender and practical applicability. Bauhaus determined: The environment will directly affect our way of life.

The shape harmonizes with the function of the Bauhaus Architectural Court in Dessau.(Photo by © Lucia Moholy / Mima).

What's new in this school is the combination of art and craft, erasing the line between art and reality. Art unification became the key principle in the late 19th century art and craft movement, and William Morris's thought influenced the direction Gropius worked on for the school. But in fact, Bauhaus is in stark contrast to the arts and crafts movement. No longer questioning the romance in the countryside, it focuses on urban and technology, machinery culture of the 20th century. Mass production is placed on top, leaving emotions and images of life. .

Bauhaus students will undergo a 6-month primary course in painting and experimental form before taking a 3-year practice course, accompanied by two people: an artist and a craftsman. They learn the theory of theory and practice and have the opportunity to work with real works. The innovative curriculum attracted extraordinary talents such as Paul Klee , Wassily Kandinsky , Oskar Schlemmer , painter and theologian Johannes Itten , László Moholy-Nagy , Josef Albers and Marcel Breuer . Bauhaus students have regular contact with the most famous painters and designers of the era.

Through the perfect promotional campaign, the school gained fame and created the influence to become a single research institute in Germany. The Bauhaus became a name that the bourgeoisie considered a symbol of intimidation. The German mother at that time said, 'If you are not good, I will send you to the Bauhaus.

Party parties at the Bauhaus.(Picture from [email protected])

But for supporters, the Bauhaus phrase contains a miraculous power. The school is associated with images of kite-flying parades and masked balls, afternoons of light and music, the abstract 'Triadic' ballet they organize. This is an opportunity to connect students from different generations and nationalities into a common community. Bauhaus is the first art school to organize activities in the community.

From the Bauhaus workshop, many products have become design standards: Marianne Brandt's work ; Wilhelm Wagenfeld 's desk lamp, designed with a nickel plated shaft with a frosted glass dome; Breuer 's simple tubular steel chair, the foundation for a green canvas cloth chair that many older people will remember. The principle of Bauhaus purely functional design should be separated from 'fashion'. But the term "Bauhaus style" has brought in the fashion availability - so much that it is considered an all-encompassing style subject, including the work of modernist designer, but who is not even there as Eileen Gray .

The Bauhaus School was founded in Weimar but changed its position in 1925 after the Social Democratic Party, its donor, lost control of the state parliament to nationalism. The school moved to Dessau, a medium-sized industrial city located in central Germany. Here, Gropius made his idea a reality when building a school that combines workshops, lectures, theaters, and refineries with Bauhaus students and staff, 'My associates all have the same thought and will . '

This is an utopian project of modernism. The Bauhaus school with sparkling shapes and glass has created a new international architectural style. The whole of the school is impressive: the details work together to create an abstract shape like De Stijl's painting. According to Russian writer Andrea Ehrenburg, the architectural building looks like 'embodiment of steadfast thinking '.

Walter Ggropius.(photo: Bauhaus 100)

But the Bauhaus could not survive the 1930s in Germany.

Many Bauhaus staff and students are Jewish; Besides, the school's abstract teaching style was cursed by the Nazis government, and in 1931 they took control of the Dessau city council. The following fall, the Bauhaus school was closed and the Nazis government took over the building, smashed the window and removed all the tools for the workshop. Only international protests can prevent them from smashing the entire building.

The Bauhaus restoration effort was done in Berlin using an old phone factory. But soon after reopening, Hitler came to power; The Nazis government-backed apparatus against the school is considered 'one of the art's most obvious refugee forms'. On April 11, 1933, Berlin police raided the building. Photos of old documents show the scene of students being escorted onto trucks.

During the closing, many school staff had to flee and disband.Gropius resigned in 1928. Klee moved to Bern and Kandinsky moved to Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1933 to live. Albers moved to the United States in 1933, where he taught at Black Mountain College in Chicago and formed a foundation program based on the Bauhaus principle. Moholy-Nagy moved to Chicago, where he founded his own art institute in 1937 as 'New Bauhaus'. Like its predecessor, the Chicago design institute, the program is similar to the original Gropius. The pressure of the Nazis government on the Bauhaus only strengthens the opportunity to reach out to the world.

London is the last stop in the relocation of artists who place their faith in democratic freedoms in the UK.Gropius and his wife Ise came here in 1934, followed by Breuer the following year; together they built Bauhaus's nuclear community for individuals exiled at Lawn Road in Hampstead. Wells Coates' renovated buildings are one of the few buildings in London that are connected to modernism.

Impington College, designed by Walter Gropius and Maxwell Fry, opened in 1939. (Photo: [email protected]).

Disappointingly, Britain in the 1930s was not ideal for modernism as many people expected, and the chances of finding a job at the time of the economic downturn were very fragile. Most people have to move to other countries, and modernist critic Herbert Read calls it 'the inevitable migration to the United States'. But there are still people who wish to bring the Bauhaus into an art school in England. Naum Slutsky , an outstanding painter , who was once a major mechanic at Weimar Bauhaus, still teaches in Birmingham until 1964.

It also houses the Bauhaus spirit in this country, Impington, a Cambridgeshire college designed by Gropius and Maxwell Fry in 1935. This is the only architectural work of Gropius in this country with Henry 's help. Morris , director of education. Morris created this local school, an arts and education center for everyone in the countryside regardless of old or young. Gropius and Fry planned to build the Impington school as a Bauhaus embodiment.

College in Camridgeshire is friendly and humble.Nikolaus Pevsner , another German immigrant artist, discovered Impington's poetic poem: 'Is this the beauty of the rigid intellectual mind of Gropius?' . With bright colors and delicate windows, this is the Bauhaus style and also the foundation for the development of the school in the UK after the war.

Leonard Elmhrist & Dorothy Elmhrist.(Photo: Wikipedia).

Dartington in Devon also gradually adopted the Bauhaus lifestyle. This was initiated by Leonard Elmhirst , a student in Yorkshire of Rabindranath Tagore, and his wealthy American wife, Dorothy. One of the main goals besides Gropius's ambition at the Bauhaus is 'to make the artist integrate into the daily reality of life' . Dartington also became a pioneering international community operating in many areas such as modern painting and sculpture, music, film, dance and modern craft. Dartington's principal's room is designed in a modern style to commemorate the Bauhaus movement in Dessau. Ballets Jooss in Essen city, expelled by the Nazis government in 1934, received a warm welcome from Dartington. The pictures of Jooss dancers brought a new feeling to the Bauhaus movement in the countryside of Totnes.

The Bauhaus pioneering movement began like that . An artistic revolution emerged soon after the war ended with the return of the Royal College of Art. The new principal, Robin Darwin , is a painter. Similar to the Bauhaus, professors teach architecture, art and design, each of them will shine with their skills and knowledge. Students are trained specifically to master design skills. The culture of working and studying at the school - absorbing and applying new, confident and liberal technologies - has quickly spread to other schools. The energy and enthusiasm and determination of the Bauhaus art school from the 1960s onwards turned England from a country with a literary culture into a country that sometimes we find ourselves there.

There was a post-war period about the Bauhaus in Germany: the Ulm Design College opened in 1955. The first principal, a Swiss architect Max Bill , the first student at the Bauhaus, designed Ulm building with post Bauhaus style. The school has partnered with Braun AG , Germany's leading equipment manufacturer. Braun's beautiful wall clocks, food mixers, radios and recorders, similar to pre-war Bauhaus devices, became fashionable and popular items at the time. ; they have created a modern design style for this generation.

Braun's radio.(Photo: DESIGN20.eu).

I have always loved the combination of Bauhaus's solemnity and madness. Over the years, I have had the opportunity to meet some Bauhaus professors and visit Ise Gropius, Walter's wife in a beautiful home in Lincoln, Massachusetts before she died in 1982. But until In the spring, I saw firsthand the Bauhaus project in Dessau, the abandoned building for many years in eastern Germany. I now understand the meaning of Rayner Banham when he called Bauhaus in Dessau a 'sacred place'. What makes it so? It is not only the harmony of the overall architecture and the log house of the nearby professors but also the thickness of history. The Bauhaus style exists to shape today's modern world.