DESIGN
Bauhaus Book is a journey through the early history of the design movement. It condenses decades of established procedure and design philosophy into simple guiding principles.
In this book, two pivotal graphic designers to the movement, Herbert Bayer and Jan Tschichold, are highlighted. Their work is not only pivotal to the Bauhaus students, but to graphic designers from across the world.
A
BAUHAUS
A
OF
A BAUHAUS BOOK
A BOOK
BOOK
A
BAU HAUS BOOK
chapter
1
chapter
2
TA B L E O F
chapter
3
chapter
4
articles & images
history of Bauhaus
page
4
nailing the Bauhaus look
page
12
CONTENTS herbert bayer
page
18
jan tschichold
page
26
credits
page
32
chapter
1
HISTORY OF BAUHAUS
1
SYNOPSIS
a bauhaus book
p age 8
T
he Bauhaus was the most influential modernist art school of the 20th century, one whose approach to teaching, and understanding art’s relationship to society and technology, had a major impact both in Europe and the United States long after it closed. It was shaped by the 19th and early 20th centuries trends such as Arts and Crafts movement, which had sought to level the distinction between fine and applied arts, and to reunite creativity and manufacturing. This is reflected in the romantic medievalism of the school’s early years, in which it pictured itself as a kind of medieval crafts guild. But in the mid 1920s the medievalism gave way to a stress on uniting art and industrial design, and it was this which ultimately proved to be its most original and important achievement. The school is also renowned for its faculty, which included: ARTISTS Wassily Kandinsky Josef Albers Laszlo Moholy-Nagy Paul Klee Johannes Itten ARCHITECTS Walter Gropius Ludwig Mies van der Rohe DESIGNER Marcel Breuer
a bauhaus book
p age 9
1919-23
“Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar”
Gropius called for the school to show a new respect for craft and technique in all ar tistic media, and suggested a return to attitudes to art and craft once characteristic of the medieval age, before art and manufacturing had drifted far apart.
BEGINNINGS
The Bauhaus, a German word meaning “house of building”, was a school founded in 1919 in Weimar, Germany by architect Walter Gropius. The school emerged out of late-19th-century desires to reunite the applied arts and manufacturing, and to reform education. These had given birth to several new schools of art and applied art throughout Germany, and it was out of two such schools that the new Bauhaus was born.
Gropius envisioned the Bauhaus encompassing the totality of all artistic media, including fine art, industrial design, graphic design, t ypography, interior design, and architecture.
p age 10 a bauhaus book
“ a new respect for craft and technique ”
Kasimir Malewitsch, Die gegenstandslose Welt, Bd. 11, München
1927
p age 11 a bauhaus book
The creators of this program were a fabulously talented faculty that Gropius attracted. Avant-garde painters Johannes Itten and Lyonel Feininger, and sculptor Gerhard
Marcks were among his first appointments. Itten would be particularly important: he was central to the creation of the Vorkurs, and his background in Expressionism lent much of the tone to the early years of the school, including its emphasis on craft and its medievalism. Indeed, Itten’s avant-gardism and Gropius’s social concerns soon put them at odds. By the early 1920s, however, Gropius had won out; Itten left and was replaced by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, who reformed vorkurs into a program that embraced technology and stressed its use for society. Other important appointments included Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Georg Muche, and Oskar Schlemmer.
CONCEPTS & STYLES
C
entral to the school’s operation was its original and influential curriculum. It was described by Gropius in the manner of a wheel diagram, with the outer ring representing the vorkurs, a six-month preliminary course, initiated by Johannes Itten, which concentrated on practical formal analysis, in particular on the contrasting properties of forms, colors and materials. The two middle rings represented two three-year courses, the formlehre, focused on problems related to form, and werklehre, a practical workshop instruction that emphasized technical craft skills. These classes emphasized functionalism through simplified, geometric forms that allowed new designs to be reproduced with ease. At the center of the curriculum were courses specialized in building construction that led students to seek practicality and necessity through technological reproduction, with an emphasis on craft and workmanship that was lost in technological manufacturing. And the basic pedagogical approach was to eliminate competitive tendencies and to foster individual creative potential and a sense of community and shared purpose.
Bauhaus founded by Gropius
1919
Paul Klee becomes Bauhaus master
1920
Bauhaus statutes released
1921
Wassily Kandinsky comes to Bauhaus
p age 12
1922
A
BAUHAUS It ten leaves, Moholy- Nagy comes
1923
“Freundeskreis� is founded
a bauhaus book
1924
Bauhaus moves to Dessau
1925
Bauhaus buildings finished
1926
Architecture department opens
1927
Meyer becomes Bauhaus director
1928
Photography class founded
1929
Mies becomes Bauhaus director
CHRONOLOGY
p age 13
1930
Klee & Stรถlzl are leaving the Bauhaus
1931
Bauhaus Dessau migrates to Berlin
Bauhaus closes for good
1933
a bauhaus book
1932
chapter
2
principles
NAILING THE BAUHAUS LOOK
2
p age 16
#1
a bauhaus book
“
F
orm follows function” is a sentence coined by Louis Sullivan, an American architect, who wanted to express the futility in excessive ornamentations, and was central to thinking in the Bauhaus school. Indeed, the Bauhaus’s final director, Mies van der Rohe, pledged the school to “honesty of construction, death to decoration”. Professors strived to convey the idea that form had to reflect the function of the product. They thought that no
Paul Klee, Pädagogisches Skizzenbuch. Bd. 2, München
1925
form follows function message should be sacrificed in favor of design choices. Differently artistic devices were to be used to increase the utility of the work. Living by this credo, the Bauhaus designer realized linear and geometrical works avoiding the use of floral or curvilinear (and useless) decorations.
The innovations introduced by the Bauhaus are still effective nowadays.
“honesty of construction, death to decoration�
They also refused to combine lower and upper case types in a same work and preferred the use of sansserif fonts.
p age 17
Designers started wrapping text around objects, and also learned to arrange type horizontally, vertically and even diagonally — which was not common at the time.
a bauhaus book
O
ne of the most important classes at the Bauhaus was typography. Indeed, several teachers soon realized the essential role of types in an effective visual communication. The Bauhaus concentrated on simplified fonts and avoided the much heavier renderings of the standard German typography of the time.
#2 typography matters
” T H E FI N A L G OA L OF ALL ARTISTIC AC T I V I T Y I S
a bauhaus book
p age 18
A RC H ITEC TU R E”
Emil Ruder, Typography
Wa l t e r G ro pius
1967
#3 geometry is KING
In 1925, Marcel Breuer, a member of the Bauhaus school, designed a new model of chair, later called “Wassily Chair”. It is composed by some metal tubes and by leather bands which give an idea of fluidity and flexibility.
Students were well-acquainted with paintings of contemporary Cubist artists, such as Picasso and Gris, and so they adopted the similar way of looking at reality. They started breaking down objects into their rawest geometric shapes, as they considered this technique as the best way to create new, and more modern items. Clean, abstract and geometric forms were constantly used to produce new
The designer was able to realize a minimal and fluid design that lasted in years and that it is still loved today.
a bauhaus book
T
he Bauhaus showed a deep love of simple geometry — a quality that makes it a great fit for web design.
p age 19
common tools that could highlight the difference from the old trends of the Art Nouveau. An example?
chapter
3
graphic designer
HERBERT BAYER
3
H
herbert BAYER
a bauhaus book
p age 22
erbert Bayer is a celebrated twentieth century AustrianAmerican versatile artist. His artistic skills include graphic designing, sculpturing, photography, painting, architect, exterior and interior designing and art direction. He was considered the last living member of the Bauhaus and known to have caused seminal development of the Atlantic Richfield Company’s corporate art collection. Born on April 5, 1900, Bayer grew up in Haag, Austria-Hungary. In Linz he was apprenticed to the artist Georg Schmidthammer. He withdrew from the apprenticeship in favor of studying at the Darmstadt Artists’ Colony. He was fascinated by the Bauhaus manifesto by Walter Gropius. His skills thrived under the supervision of some of the eminent artists of his time, such as László Moholy-Nagy, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. Later he was appointed the director of printing and advertising by Walter Gropius. Bayer adopted the reductive minimalism method for the most Bauhaus publications, employing all-lowercase, sans serif typefaces. Similar to the other typographers of his time, Kurt Schwitters and Jan Tschichold, he also tried to design typeface based on simplified phonetic alphabets.
Bayer spent five years trying to design a geometric sans-serif Proposal for a Universal Typeface. However, it only maintained the status of design and never made it to the t ype category. Now with the advent of technology, these designs are adopted in digital form as Bayer Universal. ITC Bauhaus and Architype Bayer also owe their existence to these designs. In 1928, Bayer resigned from the post at the Bauhaus as he accepted the opportunity to become art director of Vogue magazine located in Berlin. Compared to other progressives he stayed in Germany far longer. During the 1936 Olympic Games, Bayer designed a brochure in the spirit of games, celebrating the Third Reich and Hitler’s ‘tyranny’. With the turn of events, his body of work was labeled “Degenerate Art” in the Nazi propaganda exhibition. Consequently, he left Germany in 1937 and moved to Italy. The following year he resettled in New York City, United States. The decision to relocate to U.S worked in his favor as he enjoyed a life-long successful career there.
p age 23
1931
a bauhaus book
W. Riezler, Die Form: Zeitschrift für gestaltende Arbeit
a bauhaus book
p age 24
I
n 1944, he married a Dada artist, Mina Loy’s daughter Joella Syrara Haweis. Two years later he moved to Aspen, Colorado as he was offered a job by industrialist and visionary Walter Paepcke. He put his architectural skills to work and designed the Aspen Institute and restored the Wheeler Opera House. In late 1950s, he began working on phonetic alphabets again and designed one without capital letters. He created special symbols for some of the common suffixes, such as -ed, -ory, -ing, and –ion. Bayer had an opportunity to meet the successful oilman, Robert O. Anderson. Soon, the mere acquaintance turned into life-long friendship. Anderson founded the Atlantic Richfield Company that held his personal art collection and for the management of the collection he appointed Bayer ARCO’s Art and Design Consultant. He supervised the construction of ARCO Plaza in Los Angeles and created its corporate identity. Bayer designed a monumental sculpture-fountain Double Ascension for ARCO Plaza, upon Anderson’s request. Under Bayer’s expert supervision and direction the art collection exceeded thirty thousand artworks stored at the ARCO nationwide. The art collection possessed by ARCO
ARCO
a bauhaus book
p age 25
1930 Fischer, J. L., Kultura a reginalismus
was eclectic in nature, ranging from a wide variety of historic and contemporary paintings, sculptures, ethnic art to other precious artifacts. Bayer maintained and expanded the art collection until death claimed him in 1985. Herbert Bayer received Ambassador’s Award for Excellence and was inducted into the Hall of Fame by the Art Directors Club for his invaluable contribution.
p age 26 a bauhaus book
MY WO R K S E E N I N ITS TOTA L IT Y IS A
STATEMENT A BO U T TH E I NTE G R ATI O N O F TH E CO NTE M P O R A RY A RTIST I NTO A N
INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY.
p age 27 a bauhaus book
H e r b e r t B a ye r
chapter
4
graphic designer
JAN TSCHICHOLD
jan tschichold
a bauhaus book
p age 30
B
y the later 1920’s avant garde typography was making inroads into more mainstream commercial design much through the efforts of designer Jan Tschichold. Unlike the avant garde artists of his era, Tschichold was a traditionally trained calligrapher and typographer and had formally studied book design at the Leipzig Academy. In 1923 he was hired at a printing firm where he drew precise page layouts to be executed by the t ypesetters. During that year he attend an exhibition of work by Weimar Bauhaus students at which point Tschichold became a modernist convert. He made contact with both Moholy-Nagy and El Lissitzky and,
enthusiastically embracing the ideals of Russian Constructivism, changed his first name to Iwan. As with MoholyNagy, clarity of message was Tschichold’s ultimate goal and all elements on the page were configured to that end. Traditional layouts, or as he called them, box-style layouts, were boring and lacked hierarchy of importance. He moved to Berlin, then to Munich where he taught at a technical college for German printers, headed by Paul Renner. In 1927 he joined a group formed by Kurt Schwitters, The Circle of New Advertising Designers. It was this group that formulated the principles of what was proclaimed The New Typography. Although the group had some dialogue with the Bauhaus they kept a distance, possibly for fear that either side might subsume the other’s identity. The New Typography was organized around these principles: • asymmetric balance of elements • content designed by hierarchy • intentional white space utilization • sans serif typography
André Breton & Paul Eluard, Collection André Breton et Paul Eluard
1931
PERFECT T YPOGR APHY
JAN TSCHICHOLD
a bauhaus book
p age 31
is certainly the most elusive of all arts. Sculpture in stone alone comes near it in obstinacy.
T
Tschichold was a prolific writer about the subject of typography, publishing 175 articles over 50 years. At the age of 26 he produced his most influential book, The New Typography. The publication, which is today held in great reverence, was a slim, rather small publication with a black cover printed in silver ink. It was organized into two major parts. The first examined the historical roots of the New Typography and argued for its adoption in modern times. Tschichold held traditional book designers in contempt—seeing them as out of step with the world. He supported Moholy-Nagy’s typophoto approach, naming photography the preferred method of illustration. To him, sans serif was the only face that properly complimented photography. He advocated for lower case letters, (Kleinschreibung). (Note: German is rife with capitalization so it may be why this was such a topic of interest in Germany). He did not like the typefaces Kabel or Erbar, feeling them too much like artist’s faces. Paul Renner’s Futura was considered the best of the lot but not completely satisfactory. (Renner had his t ypography own book, Mechanisierte Grafik, 1931). In the second part of his book Tschichold covered the practical matters of type layout. In March 1933 he was taken into custody by the national socialists for six weeks, consequently losing his teaching job. Upon release he left Germany with this wife and son for a teaching position and printing work in Basel, Switzerland. He was granted Swiss citizenship. By the late 1930’s he has lost touch with the Circle and the new typography ceased. The Moma has a nice selection of work from The New Typography movement.
the new typography
a bauhaus book
p age 32
schichold became both a spokesman and author for the group. He promulgated their theories in lectures and writing. Somewhat dogmatically, advance notice was posted that no discussion would follow his lectures.
a bauhaus book
Jan Tschichold
p age 33
1925
typographische
mitteilungen
articles Bauhaus www.theartstory.org
Bauhaus 1919-1933 – A Chronology www.bauhaus-dessau.de
p age 34
Dial-a-Style #1: Bauhaus Design www.sitepoint.com The Bauhaus academic.chrissnider.com Herbert Bayer – Famous Graphic Designers www.famousgraphicdesigners.org
page 7: www.metmuseum.org
Tschichold's New Typography and the Relationship to the Bauhaus www.designhistory.org
page 14: www.thecharnelhouse.org
page 9: www.iconofgraphics.com
page 16: www.historygraphicdesign. com
a bauhaus book
page 20: catalog.quittenbaum.de page 23: assets.catawiki.nl page 26: animulavagula.hautetfort. com page 29: www.typolexikon.de
images