The German Bauhaus school was formed in 1919, when Walter Gropius (1883-1969) was appointed as director of the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts. The school became an art college and was renamed Das Staatliche Bauhaus Weimar. In 1925 the Bauhaus moved to Dessau, then finally to Berlin in 1932, where it closed the following year. At first the Bauhaus was mainly involved with expressionist art, design and architecture, but later became famous for its development of a style of functional architecture and its experimental use of building materials. The school had three different directors in its time: Gropius from 1919-28, Hannes Meyer from 1928-30, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1930-33.

Walter Gropius studied architecture between 1903 and 1907, then worked for Behrens from 1908 to 1910. He was a member of the Deutscher Werkbund, and in 1919 became director of the Bauhaus. Gropius was interested in a more expressionist kind of architecture and was involved in the Newman Gallery Exhibition of Unknown Architects in 1919, which displayed visionary sketches and models. One of the organisers of this exhibition, Bruno Taut, published a journal from 1920-22; Frühlicht (early light) was a supplement to an architectural magazine and then an independent publication, in which Gropius was also involved. When the Bauhaus moved to Dessau in 1925, he designed the new building, in the International Modern style (fig. 2.0). Apart from this he designed very little, but as director of the school he was a major influence through his selection of staff.

At first the tutors Gropius asked to work with him at the Bauhaus were mainly painters with expressionist connections, including Lionel Feininger (1871-1956), Paul Klee (1879-1940) and Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), who were all involved with the Blaue Reiter. The main painter at the Bauhaus, during its first four years of opening, was Johannes Itten.

Itten turned to painting from science after seeing Blaue Reiter work in Munich and cubism in Paris. Itten then studied in Stuttgart under Adolf Hölzel, who taught the power of colour and form as separate from subject matter.

In 1916 Itten opened a private painting school in Vienna, developing what is now known as the Foundation Course. The students he taught varied greatly in interest and ability. In 1919 Gropius brought Itten to the Bauhaus to run a similar course. The work Itten set his students, and indeed his own work, shows he was supporting an expressionist kind of art. From 1922-23 Gropius attempted to lead the Bauhaus from artistic self-expression towards the more realistic goal of socially useful design. Itten resisted this change of direction and was asked to leave in 1923.

Klee joined the Bauhaus in 1922, giving students attending the formal painting classes the opportunity to experience the very different techniques of both Klee and Kandinsky. Klee gained confidence at the Bauhaus, giving public lectures, writing the Pedagogical Sketchbook and essays for the Bauhaus periodical. He found inspiration from the wide variety of students and lecturers of different backgrounds passing through the Bauhaus. Klee acquired several new techniques in his art, some picked up from the non-painters at the school, including a spraying technique, crosshatching and the lacework line. In 1931 Klee was offered a post at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts and resigned from the Bauhaus.

Kandinsky’s teaching at the Bauhaus began in 1922, filling an important position as a leading teacher and theoretician, until the school’s closure in 1933. As an instructor working through every phase of the Bauhaus’s development, Kandinsky taught the basic design class for beginners as well as courses on advanced theory and conducted painting classes and workshops. He advised and lectured on colour and form, on the use of technical media, and on the history of architecture.

It has been said that Kandinsky’s works of the Bauhaus years seemed to loose some of their vivacity and magic and even conformed to the sort of work that Gropius expected. I believe these compositions are possibly more lastingly effective than his previous works, and rather than conforming I believe Kandinsky was a leading force behind the development of the International Modern Style and was a major influence to the other Bauhaus members, who obviously also influenced him with their work.

Kandinsky’s ‘Swinging’ (fig. 2.1), executed in 1925, three years after he had joined the Bauhaus, illustrates his link with modernism and proves this movement was not confined to any one specific field. In ‘Swinging’ one can see the sharp, angular lines and shapes, placed carefully together, that appear frequently in the Bauhaus work of this time, be it in art, architecture or design.

The angular lines, railings and black edging of Walter Gropius’ Bauhaus Building (fig. 2.0) are certainly echoed in this picture, as are the railings, curved wall and steps of Mart Stam’s Weissenhof Siedlung houses (fig. 2.2).

Marcel Breuer’s ‘Wassily Chair’ (fig. 2.3) shows a direct link between the worlds of art and design, not just in the name but in the rectilinear lines and flat intersecting leather straps.

Marianne Brandt’s silver teapot (fig. 2.4) uses different sized circles, semi circles and straight lines, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s ‘Weissenhof chair’ (fig. 2.5) uses a mixture of curved and straight lines with filled in and open spaces, which appear in ‘swinging’ as well.

Other important Bauhaus figures included László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), Mart Stam (1899-1986), Marcel Breuer (1902-1981), and Marianne Brandt (1893-1983).

László Moholy-Nagy was born in Hungary, studying law at Budapest University. His studies were interrupted in 1914 by the war, during which he began to draw. In 1919 he moved to Vienna, then to Berlin in 1920. He became interested in dadaism and constructivism, and produced work for the avant-garde Hungarian magazine MA and for Herewath Walden’s progressive Der Sturm gallery. Gropius invited him to join the Bauhaus early in 1923. Moholy-Nagy reformed the metalwork studios, where his teaching influenced Wagenfeld and Brandt. He practised book design and typography, made films, took photographs and taught at the Bauhaus until 1928.

Mart Stam studied to be a draughtsman in Amsterdam and Rotterdam until 1922, when he moved to Berlin. Here he met El Lissitzky, worked on a Bauhaus exhibition and designed one of the earliest cantilevered tubular steel chairs in 1925. He worked on flat-roof International Modern housing for the Weissenhof Siedlung in Stuttgart in 1927 (see fig. 2.2), and was asked to teach at the Bauhaus from 1928 to 1929.

Hungarian born Marcel Breuer studied at the Bauhaus from 1920, teaching there from 1925 to 1928 as head of the furniture workshop. His first chairs were made from wood and were strongly influenced by the De Stijl furniture of Reitveld. From 1925 Breuer began to design chairs in tubular steel (see fig. 2.3), inspired by technology wrought from bicycles and aircraft, and an earlier experiment by Mart Stam using gas piping.

The metalworker Marianne Brandt was born in Germany in 1893. She studied at the Bauhaus from 1923 to 1925 under László Moholy-Nagy, whose constructivist forms inspired her greatly. Moholy-Nagy turned her from an Arts and Crafts metalworker in 1924 into an industrial designer of lamps in 1925. This can be illustrated by comparing her silver teapot, which is Modern in form yet Arts and Crafts in material and technique, to her table lamp pictured in fig. 2.4. She was head of the metal workshops at the Bauhaus from 1928 to 1929.

The Bauhaus moved to Dessau in 1926. Unlike Weimar, Dessau did not have a brilliant past and reputation but the surroundings were attractive and Berlin was within easy reach by train. There were visits, lectures, discussions, and the Bauhaus workshops began to get commissions from industry. Everything went well at Dessau until 1928, when Gropius resigned to devote himself to private practice. Moholy-Nagy, Marcel Breuer, and Herbert Bayer resigned soon afterward. In 1929 Schlemmer, too, left for the School of Fine Arts in Breslau, and Hannes Meyer was appointed director of the Bauhaus. Meyer was a marxist and had disagreements with his fellow-workers at the Bauhaus and the authorities of Dessau. In 1930 he was replaced by the German architect Mies van der Rohe.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe trained as a stonemason from 1900 to 1902. In 1905 he was apprenticed to the architect Bruno Paul in Berlin, and then to Peter Behrens from 1908 to 1911. Between 1919 and 1921 he became, like Gropius, interested in expressionism in architecture. He then became involved in the International Modern movement, becoming vice-president of the Deutscher Werkbund from 1926 to 1932 and Director of the Werkbund Weissenhof Siedlung exhibition in Stuttgart in 1927. From that date Mies van der Rohe designed simple, functional cantilevered tubular steel chairs (fig. 2.5). He designed a pavilion for the Barcelona Exhibition of 1929, which expressed his interest in Modern but luxurious architecture and furniture. He refused the post of Director of the Bauhaus in 1928, but accepted when he was asked again in 1930. He moved the school from Dessau to Berlin but the community spirit had been destroyed by the unending academic, organisational and political crises. The Bauhaus was finally closed by the Nazis in 1933.

Chapter III

	Acknowledgements
	Preface
	Chapter I: Modernism
	Chapter II: The Bauhaus School
	Chapter III: Modernism in domestic architecture: Frinton Park Estate
	Conclusion
	Appendices
	Bibliography & book searching
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