Seeds of Modernism by erinbusher

Seeds Of Modernism:

The Influence of the Bauhaus Seeds of Modernism: the making of the Bauhaus concept, developments in Bauhaus Archive Berlin Museum of Design

design history 1830 to 1950

Bauhaus Archive Berlin Museum of Design

James Volks & Susan Harrison

Seeds of Modernism

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Seeds Of Modernism: The Influence of the Bauhaus

Seeds of Modernism: the making of the Bauhaus concept, developments in design history 1830 to 1950 Bauhaus Archive Berlin Museum of Design

Bauhaus Archive Berlin Museum of Design

James Volks & Susan Harrison

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Contents

1. Intro 2. Marianne Brandt’s Tea Strainer 3. Marcel Breuer’s Wassily Chair 4. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s Pneumatik advertisement 5. Bibliography

Seeds of Modernism

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Introduction

1 9

Seeds of Modernism

Introduction to Bauhaus In the following essay, I will explore the techniques of Bauhaus design. In this essay, I will discuss Marianne Brandt’s acclaimed Tea Strainer, made in 1924 as she was a student at Bauhaus. I will also be examining a piece of visual communication called Pneumatik made by László Moholy-Nagy and finally, the Wassily chair designed by Marcel Breuer. Although each of these objects are completely different, they can be used to show the characteristics of Bauhaus design evident in various fields of design. The ‘Staatliches Bauhaus’, more commonly known simply as the Bauhaus was a German School of design founded by Walter Gropius. Gropius was an architect (Zelazko). He joined the Weimar Academy of Arts and the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts to form the Bauhaus, a derivative of the German word Hausbau, meaning “building of a house” (Zelazko). In this school, Gropius united many different fields of art and design, including crafts and textiles all the way to architecture under one roof with the aim of ending the division between them. Although the school was short lived, only running from 1919 to 1932, the ideals and aims of the school eventually transformed into a movement.

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Seeds of Modernism

Phases of the Bauhaus An extract from bauhauskooperation.com

The Bauhaus was only active for 14 years: as the “State Bauhaus” in Weimar, as a “school of design” in Dessau and as a private education institute in Berlin. It evolved out of the arts and crafts movement and art school reforms. Its ideas had an impact well beyond the school itself, its locations and its time. Up to 1919- The Origins The period that led to the Bauhaus was very much influenced by approaches to education reform and by the pre-war arts and crafts movement. From foundation, the Bauhaus saw itself as a part of the modern movement and as its mediator. Created from the migration of artists and ideas, it developed in constant interaction with various groups of architects, urban planners, artists, scientists and designers. The constitutive ideas of the Bauhaus come from the Arts and Crafts Movement of the prewar period, especially the progressive education movement and the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) that unites all of the arts as well as aesthetic education in all areas of life as represented by the Deutscher Werkbund (German Work Federation) and Art Nouveau. Henry van de Velde, who in Weimar in 1902 founded the Kunstgewerbliches Seminar (arts and crafts seminar), an advisory body for crafts and trade in the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, and was the director of the Kunstgewerbeschule (school of applied arts) from 1907 to 1915, played a significant role in the early history of the Bauhaus. Gropius, whom van der Velde had already proposed as his successor in 1915, not only took over the art school

building built by van de Velde from 1904 to 1911, but also what was left of the training workshops, machines, tools and materials. He also hired some of its teachers. Under Henry van de Velde, the school workshops had already taken the transitional step from craftsmanship techniques to industrial technology in 1910. Just ten years later, Gropius wrote that the Bauhaus workshops were intended as ‘laboratories’ for industry. The discussions at the works council for art, where German intellectuals, architects and artists came together in the autumn of 1918, had another decisive influence on the pioneering programme of the Bauhaus Weimar. Under the leadership of Otto Bartning, one work group including Walter Gropius discussed the far-reaching reform of the educational system. In the spring of 1919, it developed a mutual concept paper that served as a basis for Gropius’s concept. The return to craftsmanship was not connected with the intention of creating industrialised reproductions of past styles that evolved from craftsmanship but with the development of a new formal vocabulary based on experimentation and

The Influence of the Bauhaus craftsmanship that would do justice to the industrial manufacturing process. From Morris to the Bauhaus is a book title that has long become a byword including the Bauhaus in a line of development that reaches back to mid-19th century England. The artist William Morris (1834–1896) was the founder and leader of a reform movement that aspired to counter the cultural damage caused by industrialisation. Starting in 1861, he revived historic handicraft techniques in his workshops and used them to produce high quality goods such as fabrics, carpets, glass paintings, furniture and everyday objects. In his own publishing company, Kelmscott Press, he produced books that paved the way for Art Nouveau. Morris triggered a wave of reform that was to reach Germany later, where industrialisation had achieved a new quality after the foundation of the German Reich in 1871. Germany also recognised that well-designed industrial products represented a significant economic factor. The British educational system was analysed in order to reform the German schools of arts and crafts. An entire generation of painters now understood that the applied arts were their most important task. The Dresden Workshops (1898), whose ‘machine furniture’ was designed by Richard Riemerschmid, are the best-known example of the many workshops established on German soil. In 1903, the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese Workshop) was established in Austria with Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser as its

most important representatives. The Weimar State Bauhaus was founded by Walter Gropius with the goal of overcoming the division between the artisan and the artist. The employees of the Bauhaus wanted to eliminate social differences through their creative work. This intention and its results exhibited a variety of similarities and connections with reform movements such as the Deutscher Werkbund (German Work Federation), which was established in 1907 and of which Walter Gropius was a member until 1933. 1919-1925- Bauhaus Weimar In Weimar the Bauhaus was already a magnet for the European avant-garde because it was cosmopolitan in spirit and open to international artistic diversity. On 1st of April 1919, the cornerstone was laid for the school of design and architecture. Walter Gropius became the director of the former Grand-Ducal Saxon College of Fine Arts Art School [Grossherzoglich Sächsische Hochschule für bildende Kunst] in Weimar. He united it formally with the College of Applied Art which had been dissolved, and named the resulting institution the State Bauhaus in Weimar [Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar]. The school represented the spirit of awakening that was also dominant in the current politics, personified by the national assembly convening in Weimar at the time to pen the constitution of 1919. The high calibre artists Gropius appointed as masters at the Bauhaus Weimar included Gerhard Marcks, Lyonel

Seeds of Modernism Feininger, Johannes Itten, Paul Klee, Oskar Schlemmer, Wassily Kandinsky and László Moholy-Nagy.

‘Synthesis of the art’, as Gropius called it, to which all the Bauhaus workshops were to contribute.

In his manifesto and programme for the Weimar State Bauhaus, Walter Gropius called for a new beginning for building culture with elements that were considered visionary for that era. Art should once again serve a social role, and there should no longer be a division between the crafts-based disciplines. Instead of academic theory, the Bauhaus relied on a pluralistic educational concept, on creative methods and the individual development of the students’ artistic talents. Academic requirements for enrolment were dispensed with, so that talented young people could study at the Bauhaus Weimar irrespective of their educational background, gender or nationality. Between 150 and 200 students were registered at the Bauhaus Weimar. Depending on the semester, this included a 25 to 50 per cent ratio of women and a 17 to 33 per cent ratio of foreign students.

The Bauhaus’s first publisher’s mark, the so-called Sternenmännchen (star mannequin) by Karl Peter Röhl, was designed in 1919 for a students’ competition and was replaced in 1922 by a design by Oskar Schlemmer. The new publisher’s mark was used to label the Bauhaus products and for all of the school’s important printed goods. Schlemmer’s impressive publisher’s mark is underpinned by the concept that the human being should stand at the centre of all the school’s endeavours.

Based on the manifesto and programme of the Bauhaus, the Bauhaus masters in Weimar developed a new type of teaching programme based on the preliminary course developed by the Swiss artist and art teacher Johannes Itten, the famous form and colour theory of Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky and practical training in the workshops. The ultimate goal of the educational programme was collaborative work on a representative building, the ‘Synthesis of the art’, as Gropius

One special feature of education at the Bauhaus Weimar was the stage workshop, which was directed by Lothar Schreyer from 1921 to 1923 and Oskar Schlemmer from 1923 to 1925. The stage department was seen as an integrational workshop where the entire spectrum of visual and performing arts was fostered by an interdisciplinary approach.

Training in the workshops was preceded by the preliminary course, a trial semester where the personal skills of the students were tested and the foundations of craftsmanship and design were taught. Developed gradually up to 1921, the workshops were the centrepiece of the Bauhaus Weimar.

Historically, the Bauhaus was more closely associated with the political, socio-

The Influence of the Bauhaus economic and cultural developments of the Weimar Republic than any other German institute of education. The Bauhaus’s beginnings in Weimar were influenced by expressionism and, to a greater extent, the esoteric – largely thanks to Johannes Itten’s persona. In 1923, Walter Gropius initiated a decisive change of direction at the Bauhaus Weimar. Theo van Doesburg, a Dutch artist, member and propagandist of the group De Stijl, served as a catalyst for this development, which was furthered by the confrontation with Constructivism and the demands of a technologically-orientated world. In this context, a pragmatic, functional approach prevailed – but this was not accepted without question at the Bauhaus. There is no doubt that this new direction triggered a rise in productivity as early as the Bauhaus’s Weimar phase, manifested in many design classics, such as the famous Bauhaus lamp by Jucker and Wagenfeld. The Bauhaus exhibition of 1923, which was the first major exhibition by the Bauhaus about the Bauhaus, was to convey

first time. Between 1919 and 1923, the state government generally promoted Gropius’s plans. In the 1924 elections, the right wing party Thüringer Ordnungsbund gained a majority in the Landtag, the state legislative assembly. The budget for the Bauhaus was immediately cut by half and the teachers’ contracts cancelled as of 31st March 1925. In an act of self-assertion, Gropius and the Bauhaus masters resigned their posts in December. Various cities signalled an interest in providing a new home for the Bauhaus. Ultimately, the city of Dessau, which was governed by the Social Democratic Party of Germany, was favoured by the teachers due to its excellent economic perspectives. After the move to Dessau in 1925, Walter Gropius donated 160 products made in the workshops of the Weimar State Bauhaus to the state’s collection. Weimar therefore possesses the oldest authorised Bauhaus collection worldwide.

this new direction to the public. The Haus am Horn was built in this context as the first architectural testimonial to the early Bauhaus in Weimar. It still exists today. From its foundation, the Bauhaus was caught in the crossfire between different political parties. The right wing dismissed it as utopian and Bolshevist. The city’s populist nationalist politicians launched salvos against the school. Criticism also arose from the left wing spectrum for the

Poster for the 1923 Bauhaus Exhibition in Weimar by Joost Schmidt

Seeds of Modernism 1925-1931- Bauhaus Dessau The Bauhaus experienced its heyday in Dessau. Here the “State Bauhaus” became a “School of Design”. Surprisingly, following the politically motivated closure of the Bauhaus in Weimar, the change of location to Dessau did not result in a crisis in the school. If anything, it fostered its consolidation on

the majority of the products and buildings that still define the image of the Bauhaus today were created in Dessau. In Dessau, the stylistically influential use of lower case lettering was established for the first time, and the foundation of the company Bauhaus GmbH allowed the students to participate in the success of the products developed at the Bauhaus. Important

the path to the design of new industrial products for the masses. Proclaimed at the Weimar exhibition of 1923, the new unity of art and technology – which is still the basis for the school’s international reputation – only achieved its full potential in Dessau. Starting with the famous Bauhaus Building – designed by the private architecture office of its founding director Walter Gropius in cooperation with the Bauhaus workshops and opened in 1926 –,

advocates for the Bauhaus in Dessau included the free-spirited aviation pioneer and inventor Hugo Junkers, the city’s liberal mayor Fritz Hesse and the State Conservator Ludwig Grote. These not only looked to Bauhaus for solutions to the shortage of affordable housing for workers in industrial regions but also anticipated innovative cultural impulses for the city. As an architect and designer who had already made a name for himself in 1911 with the

The Masters on the Roof of the Bauhaus Studio Building in Dessau, during the opening of the Bauhaus: Josef Albers, Hinnerk Scheper, Georg Muche, László Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer, Joost Schmidt, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Gunta Stölzl, Oskar Schlemmer. Photo: unknown, 1926.

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Important advocates for the Bauhaus in Dessau included the free-spirited aviation pioneer and inventor Hugo Junkers, the city’s liberal mayor Fritz Hesse and the State Conservator Ludwig Grote. These not only looked to Bauhaus for solutions to the shortage of affordable housing for workers in industrial regions but also anticipated innovative cultural impulses

the clothing in the Dessau phase was extremely modern: The men wore close-fitting suits, and the women cut their hair in a bob and wore trousers or knee-length skirts.

for the city. As an architect and designer who had already made a name for himself in 1911 with the celebrated glass building for the Fagus-Werk shoe last factory in Alfeld, Lower Saxony, Gropius was warmly welcomed by the Dessau city fathers. With the exception of Gerhard Marcks, the Weimar masters Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, László Moholy-Nagy, Georg Muche and Oskar Schlemmer, who were already famous, followed Gropius to Dessau and moved into the Masters’ Houses that he had designed. This meant the most prominent artists’ colony of the day – famous even outside Germany – was in Dessau. The importance of this image factor for the emerging industrial location

the middle classes in Dessau in the same way that the libertarian lifestyle at the Bauhaus sparked aversion. Given the incipient global economic crisis, there was little appreciation for the added cultural value of the Bauhaus with its stage, Bauhaus-Kapelle (Bauhaus band), readings and festivals. From 1927 in Dessau, as in Weimar before that, Gropius was once again forced to fight for the political survival of his school. With Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1930, the Bauhaus acquired its last and – in contrast to Gropius and Meyer – least politically minded director. The school’s orientation towards architecture grew under his direction. The students were most affected by the ban on any type of political activity

cannot be overestimated. From 1926, the former Weimar State Bauhaus was officially called Bauhaus – School of Design. Instead of the customary journeyman’s certificate of the Weimar period, graduates received a diploma and the masters were appointed as professors. The artistic subjects were pushed aside in favour of courses orientated towards industrial design. While Itten’s students, who typically had shorn heads, still wore voluminous cloaks in the Weimar phase,

and the discontinuation of production lines. Just one year after Mies van der Rohe took office, the city council of Dessau was already dominated by the NSDAP. The city passed a resolution to close the Bauhaus in Dessau as of September 1932. The relocation of the school with all its equipment to an old telephone factory in Berlin-Steglitz, which was organised by Mies van der Rohe, was just a brief interlude that preceded its final closure on 20th July 1933.

However, mistrust and resentment were also evident in Dessau. The lack of affordable living space due to the high costs for the experimental Dessau-Törten estate angered

Seeds of Modernism

Walter Gropius photographed by Louis Held, 1919,dezeen.com

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Walter Gropius Director 1919-28

Biography from bauhauskooperation.com Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus in 1919 as a new type of art school that combined life, craft and art under one roof. Gropius managed the Bauhaus as its director until 1928. Walter Gropius was the founder of the Bauhaus and remained committed to the institution that he invested in throughout his life. He was a Bauhaus impresario in the best possible sense, a combination of speaker and entrepreneur, a visionary manager who aimed to make art a social concern during the post-war upheaval. After his departure as the Bauhaus’s director, Gropius recommended his two successors: Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The conservation of the Bauhaus’s legacy after its forced closure is another of Gropius’s accomplishments. He was also able to continue his career in exile in America as an avant-garde architect. A native of Berlin, Gropius came from an upper middle-class background. His greatuncle was the architect Martin Gropius, a student of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, whose best-known work was the Königliche Kunstgewerbemuseum (royal museum of applied art) in Berlin, which now bears his name. In 1908, after studying architecture in Munich and Berlin for four semesters,

consultant for AEG. Other members of Behrens’s practice included Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. Gropius became a member of the Deutscher Werkbund (German Work Federation) as early as 1910. The same year, Gropius opened his own company. He designed furniture, wallpapers, objects for mass production, automobile bodies and even a diesel locomotive. In 1911, Gropius worked with Adolf Meyer on the design of the FagusWerk, a factory in the Lower Saxony town of Alfeld an der Leine. With its clear cubic form and transparent façade of steel and glass, this factory building is perceived to be a pioneering work of what later became known as modern architecture. For the 1914 exhibition of the Deutscher Werkbund (German Work Federation) in Cologne, Gropius and Adolf Meyer designed a prototype factory which was to become yet another classic example of modern architecture. Gropius served on the Western front in WW I and experienced this war as

Gropius joined the office of the renowned architect and industrial designer Peter Behrens, who worked as a creative

a catastrophe. In 1918, he joined the November Group, which aimed to incorporate the impulses of the revolution

Seeds of Modernism in art. From 1919, Gropius was the head of the Work Council for Art, a radical group of architects, painters and sculptors. In addition, he contributed to the Gläserne Kette (crystal chain), a chain letter initiated by Bruno Taut that called for the ‘dissolution of the previous foundations’ of architecture and the ‘disappearance of the personality’ of the artist. With the founding of the Bauhaus, Gropius was able to translate various ideas from the radical artists’ associations into reality. As the successor of the Belgian artist Henry van de Velde, he became the director of the GroßherzoglichSächsische Kunstgewerbeschule (Grand Ducal Saxonian school of arts and crafts) in Weimar, which he renamed Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar. Gropius explained the idea of the Bauhaus in the founding Manifesto, a four-page booklet with the famous Cathedral woodcut by Lyonel Feininger on its cover. The school’s most innovative educational aspect was its dualistic approach to training in the workshops, which were codirected by a craftsman (master of works) and an artist (master of form). The crafts-based work was understood as the ideal unity of artistic design and material production. According to Gropius’s curriculum, education at the Bauhaus began with the obligatory preliminary course, continued in the workshops and culminated in the building. Sommerfeld House in Berlin is considered to be the first joint endeavour undertaken in the sense of the Bauhaus. It was designed by Walter Gropius and

Adolf Meyer (1921–1922), and it integrated furnishings made by the students. For Gropius the Bauhaus was a laboratory of the arts where the traditional apprentice and master model was maintained, but where diverse disciplines were interconnected in a completely new way. The outcome of this approach was not established from the start but was to be discovered in the spirit of research and experimentation, which Gropius called ‘fundamental research’ that was applied to all the disciplines and their products, from the highrise to the tea infuser. In Weimar itself, Gropius left very few traces as an architect and artist. In 1922, his controversial design for the monument Denkmal der Märzgefallenen was unveiled at Weimar’s main cemetery. Destroyed by the NSDAP, it was rebuilt after WW II. The director’s office of the Bauhaus, which was furnished by Gropius in 1923–1924, was also reconstructed. In 1923, Gropius initiated a change of course at the Bauhaus with a major exhibition under the motto ‘art and technology – a new unity’. The school now turned towards industrial methods of production. As a result, the highly influential master, Expressionist painter and first director of the preliminary course, Johannes Itten, left the Bauhaus. Gropius appointed the Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy as his successor.

The Influence of the Bauhaus With the politically motivated move to the industrial city of Dessau in 1925, a new era began for the Bauhaus. During this period, which is seen as his best and most productive, Gropius designed not only the Bauhaus Building (opened in 1926) but was also intensively involved in the development of the large-scale residential building and the rationalisation of the construction process. The buildings created in Dessau included the Masters’ Houses (1925–1926) that were built for the Bauhaus masters, the Dessau-Törten housing estate (1926– 1928) and the Employment Office. In 1928, Walter Gropius – unnerved by the quarrels in local politics about the Bauhaus – handed the post of director over to the Swiss architect and urbanist Hannes Meyer, whom Gropius had brought to the Bauhaus the previous year as the head of the newly founded architecture class. After moving to Berlin, Gropius dedicated himself completely to his architectural practice and the promotion of New Architecture. The most important completed buildings of this period include the Dammerstock housing estate in Karlsruhe (1928–1929) and the Siemensstadt housing estate in Berlin (1929–1930).

From 1938 to 1941, Gropius maintained an office partnership with Marcel Breuer. He became an American citizen in 1944. In 1946, Gropius founded the young architects’ association The Architects Collaborative (TAC), a manifestation of his life-long belief in the significance of teamwork, which he had already successfully introduced at the Bauhaus. One work produced by this office is the Graduate Center of Harvard University in Cambridge (1949–1950). During the last years of his life, Gropius was once again frequently active in Berlin. Among other projects, he built a ninestorey residential building in the Hansa district in 1957 within the scope of the Interbau exhibition. In 1964–1965, Gropius designed plans for the Bauhaus Archive in Darmstadt. These were realised in a modified form in Berlin from 1976 to 1979 after Gropius’s death. Even beyond his official term as the Bauhaus director from 1919 to 1928, Gropius was emphatically committed to the recognition and dissemination of the Bauhaus idea. When he died in 1969 in Boston, the Bauhaus was at least as famous as its founder.

In 1934, Gropius emigrated to England and then on to the USA in 1937. He worked there as a professor for architecture at the Graduate School of Design of Harvard University. In 1938, he organised the exhibition Bauhaus 1919–1928 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York together with Herbert Bayer.

Seeds of Modernism

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Marianne Brandt

Seeds of Modernism

Marianne Brandt, Untitled (Self Portrait with Jewelry [sic] for the Metal Party), 1929.

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Marianne Brandt The first piece I will describe is Marianne Brandt’s Teapot (fig. 1). This teapot was designed by Marianne Brandt in 1924. It can be seen as the ultimate Bauhaus object. It encompasses the ideas of form following function and shows how beauty can be achieved in simplicity, purely through form and colour, two of the main concepts followed in the Bauhaus. This piece was designed shortly after Brandt joined the metalwork department of the school. Brandt was encouraged by László Moholy-Nagy, who was the workshop’s form master at the time, to join the field, even though practically all Female students were pushed toward textiles. This is already a feat in itself.

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People of the BauhausMarianne Brandt 1923–1928 Bauhaus student / 1928–1929 deputy head of Metal An extract from bauhauskooperation.com

László Moholy-Nagy quickly recognised her unique talent. With his encouragement, Brandt studied in the male domain of the metal workshop – proving more successful than many of her classmates. Marianne Brandt began her education in art in 1911 at a private art school in Weimar. Afterwards, she was accepted at the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst Weimar (now the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar) and studied painting with the artists Fritz Mackensen and Robert Weise before studying sculpture with Richard Engelmann. In 1919, she married the Norwegian painter Erik Brandt. In 1920, she took a one-year study tour with visits to Paris and the south of France. She came to the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar in 1923. Brandt attended the preliminary course taught by Josef Albers and László Moholy-Nagy, as well as classes by Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. In addition, she worked in the metal workshop with László Moholy-Nagy.

Marianne Brandt

The Influence of the Bauhaus She continued her training at the Bauhaus in Dessau and continued her work in the metal workshop with László Moholy-Nagy. In 1926, she had already designed the first lighting fixtures for the Bauhaus Building in Dessau. From the summer semester of 1927, she was in charge of technical experiments in lighting in the metal workshop. From May 1928 to 1st July 1929, she was the director of the metal workshop. On 10th September 1929, she earned her Bauhaus diploma, the diploma no. 2 of the metal workshop. In 1928 and 1929, Brandt and Hin Bredendieck also organised the collaboration with the companies Körting & Mathiesen AG (Kandem) in Leipzig and Schwintzer & Gräff in Berlin. At the same time, she worked with Hin Bredendieck and others on designs for Brandt left the Bauhaus at the end of 1929, lighting fixtures for mass production. having worked at the architecture office of Walter Gropius from July to December 1929. She contributed to the interior design of the Karlsruhe-Dammerstock housing estate. Afterwards, she directed the design department of the company Ruppelwerk Metallwarenfabrik GmbH in Gotha until 1932. She lived in Chemnitz from 1933 to 1945. In 1939, she became a member of the Reich Chamber of Culture, yet she did not join the NSDAP. In 1949, Mart Stam appointed her as a lecturer at the HfBK Dresden. She worked at the University of Applied Art (now the Berlin Weißensee School of Art) until 1954. At the same time, she supervised the exhibition Deutsche Angewandte Kunst der DDR (German applied art of the GDR) in Beijing and Shanghai in 1953-54. Her reputation was established above all by her industrial products made from metal and glass. She also produced numerous photographs and photomontages.

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Through the design of this seemingly simple object, Brandt accomplished many things. She managed to strip back the design to the bare minimum of what is needed to create a functioning tea strainer. This demonstrates the idea of “form following function”. There is no part of this object unnecessary to its use. The design is reduced to basic geometric shapes, employing the use of the forms

circle, square and triangle, another concept central to Bauhaus design. The main form of the tea strainer is the shape of a hemisphere. This hemisphere sits on top of crossbars and has a circular lid, placed asymmetrically. Not only is this design aesthetically pleasing, it is also highly functional. The teapot itself is only three inches tall. This is down to functionality.

The Influence of the Bauhaus

It is intended to hold a concentrated liquid which can be used to make tea as desired. The lid of the teapot is placed asymmetrically to prevent spills and drips. The handle is a sturdy semi-circle shape made of ebony, while the lid is more delicate, made of metal with a mahogany handle.

Model No. MT 49 teapot (1924). Image © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. An authentic Model No. MT 49 teapot is a highly valued object. On 14 December 2007, an original MT 49 teapot was sold for $361,000 to a private American museum during an auction at Sotheby’s, New York. Source: Dezeen. (lzf-lamps.com)

Seeds of Modernism

The piece was designed with mass production in mind, although it was “hand-forged from nickel silver” (MoMA) 2019). Brandt wrote that

“the task was to shape these things in such a way that even if they were to be produced in numbers, making the work lighter, they would satisfy all aesthetic and practical criteria and still be far less expensive than any singly produced item.” (MoMA 2019). However, this design never became mass produced as had been planned due to its use of more extravagant materials, such as silver and ebony. Using materials like this was often “ criticised at the Bauhaus” (Weber 1992).

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Marianne Brandt left the Bauhaus in 1929, temporarily joining Walter Gropius (who had left the school in 1928) at his Berlin-based architecture practice. In 1930, she was appointed head of design at the Ruppelwerk Metallwarenfabrik (Metal Products Factory) in Gotha, Germany. Despite struggling to win the respect of the factory’s male technicians and dealing with Ruppelwerk’s more conservative aspirations, Brandt remained as head of design for three years. But an economic depression and the constraints of the Third Reich following its seizure of power, meant her position was untenable and she had to leave Ruppelwerk.

Marianne Brandt, Coffee and Tea Set, 1924, © Photo: Lucia Moholy, © Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, © ADAGP, Paris

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“In the Bauhaus’s fourteen years, managed to find a way round its one of those women, Marianne B its most successful student.” 32

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Marianne Brandt

, only eleven women gender restrictions: Brandt, was arguably -Gerard McGuickin 33

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Form Follows Function.

Marcel Breuer

The Influence of the Bauhaus

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Marcel Breuer sitting in a Wassily chair

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Marcel Breuer The second piece of work I will discuss is Marcel Breuer’s Wassily Chair (fig.2). Breuer was an American born, Hungarian Architect. Breuer studied and went on to teach in the Bauhaus from the years of 1920 to 1928 (Lewis). He ran the furniture workshop. (Siebenbrodt and Schöbe 41). He followed Walter Gropius in the pursuit of designing “technologically simple but functionally complex” items by combining “standardized units” (Lewis). Breuer went on to invent the tubular metal chair in 1925. He was inspired by the effective design of his bicycle as he was impressed by how strong yet light it was. He thought that if it could be bent to make parts of a bicycle, it could also be bent to make furniture (MoMA) This encouraged him to design the ‘Wassily’ Armchair, which was his first experimental piece using tubular steel. (Metropolitan Museum).

Seeds of Modernism

People of the BauhausMarcel Breuer 1920–1924 Bauhaus student / 1925–1928 Bauhaus young master Extract from bauhauskooperation.com

He was the first furniture designer ever to use tubular steel. Breuer quickly grasped how to use this material, combining it with textiles for optimum comfort. Marcel Breuer received a scholarship to attend the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 1920. He switched to the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar the same year and attended Johannes Itten’s preliminary course. From 1920/21 to 1924, he studied at the carpentry workshop taught by Walter Gropius. In 1924, he passed his journeyman’s examination at the Chamber of Crafts Weimar and initially became an associate journeyman in the carpentry workshop with flexible working hours and a fixed salary. His job was to facilitate between the masters of form and the masters of works. After his appointment by Walter Gropius as a junior master in 1925, he directed the furniture workshop, also known as the carpentry workshop, until 1928. In 1925, he created the B3 chair, the first design for a tubular steel chair for domestic use. In 1926– 1927, Breuer founded the company Standard Möbel GmbH with Kálmán Lengyel in Berlin. That same year, he married fellow Bauhaus member Martha Erps.

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Breuer left the Bauhaus in 1928. He opened an architecture office in Berlin, employing the former Bauhaus student Gustav Hassenpflug. Breuer continued to work as an interior designer and furniture designer (Piscator apartment) in Berlin. However, his many architecture projects were not realised. In 1933, Breuer moved his office to Budapest. Two years later, he relocated to England and founded an architecture office together with the architect F. R. S. Yorke. In 1937, he moved to the United States and received a professorship for architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design with the help of Walter Gropius. Together with Gropius, he directed an office in Cambridge, Massachusettes, until 1941. The same year, Breuer established his own architecture office, which he moved to New York in 1946. In 1956, he founded the practice Marcel Breuer and Associates, Architects in New York. This realised a number of major projects in the United States and Europe (Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, UNESCO Building in Paris).

Seeds of Modernism

“It is my most extreme work both in its outward appearance and in the use of materials; it is the least artistic, the most logical, the least ‘cosy’ and the most mechanical.” Metropolitan Museum

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Marcel Breuer Club chair (model B3) (1927–1928)

Seeds of Modernism

The chair was modelled after a stuffed club style armchair, but Breuer simplified it and stripped it back to its most basic shape. Instead of the traditional bulky, club chair shape, this chair is brought back to the bare minimum, leaving only what is absolutely necessary to its function. Again, we can see here the idea of form following function in Bauhaus design. The original chair ‘Wassily’ Armchair design consists of the tubular frame and canvas seat, back and arm rest. Although the tubular frame is what makes it most recognizable, the sitter’s body does not touch it (MoMA). Breuer said about the chair, “It is my most extreme work both in its outward appearance and in the use of materials; it is the least artistic, the most logical, the least ‘cosy’ and the most mechanical.” (Metropolitan Museum). The name itself of the ‘Wassily’ Armchair unsurprisingly came from the name of the painter Wassily Kandinsky. However, Kandinsky himself did not have anything to do with the design or construction of the chair. The name came about as Kandinsky was a friend and a contemporary of Breuer. He was also a fellow teacher in the Bauhaus. He admired the design of the model, so Breuer created a copy for Kandinsky’s office. (Schneider, 2011). This is where many got the impression that the chair was created specifically for Kandinsky.

Despite the fact that this chair looks like a seemingly simple design, it was Breuer’s most influential piece. It took furniture design into a “radical new direction”, inspiring designers all over the world to explore the possibilities of using tubular steel for design (MoMA). Breuer then went on to generate even more furniture using the same steel tubing. This was used to furnish the Dessau Bauhaus buildings. (Siebenbrodt and Schöbe 224)

Cesca Chair by Marcel Breuer, 1928

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Marcel Breuer Breuer moved to New York City in 1946 and thereafter attracted numerous major commissions: the Sarah Lawrence College Theatre, Bronxville, New York (1952); the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Headquarters, Paris (1953–58; with Pier Luigi Nervi and Bernard Zehrfuss); St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota (1953–61); De Bijenkorf department store, Rotterdam (1955–57); the International Business Machines (IBM) research centre, La Gaude, France (1960–62); and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City (completed 1966); and the headquarters for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Washington, D.C. (1963–68). He retired from practice in 1976.

Seeds of Modernism

Bauhaus Dessau: Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture. Interview with curator Mathias Remmele

Taken from smow.com

Presenting a wide-ranging look at Breuer’s furniture and architectural legacy “Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture” is a product of the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein and is curated by the journalist/curator/lecturer Mathias Remmele. At the exhibition opening we caught up with Mathias Remmele for a quick chat about Marcel Breuer, his work and his influences. (smow)blog: From the exhibition it is clear that Marcel Breuer started working with wood and then later switched to steel tubing. Why the switch? Do we known what the motivation was? Mathias Remmele: Its not possible to say with 100% certainty; however, from Breuer himself comes the story that he was cycling one day, looked down at his handlebars and that was in effect the Eureka moment. Personally however I’m not convinced that that is the complete story. There is also conjecture that it could have had its roots in the Junker aircraft factory that was also here in Dessau, had connections to Bauhaus and which used steel and iron tubing, for example, for aircraft seats. But as I say, we don’t know with 100% certainty. (smow)blog: But what is certain is that once he started, there was no holding him back…. Mathias Remmele: Indeed, he spent the next 6 years working very intensely with steel tubing and more or less designed all types of furniture that can be sensibly created with the material: numerous chairs, stools, tables, desks, even a bed… (smow)blog: And was it the case Breuer approach, for example, Thonet with ideas for new pieces, or did Thonet commission him to create specific objects? Where, in effect, came the impetus to create new pieces?

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Mathias Remmele: Again, and as with so much involving Breuer, that’s not something that is explicitly documented. However I assume that in the beginning Breuer approached Thonet with his ideas, but then from a certain point Thonet would have started to look at what objects would be interesting for them.

A selection of steel tube chairs by Marcel Breuer. As seen at Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture, Bauhaus Dessau (smow)blog: Walter Gropius is a constant feature in Marcel Breuer’s biography. How was their relationship, was it father/son or more a strict teacher/pupil? Mathias Remmele: I’d say more father/son and certainly a lifelong friendship. Walter Gropius identified Marcel Breuer’s talent very early in Weimar and encouraged and advanced his work before promoting him to a Young Master and head of the furniture workshop at Dessau. But also beyond the time at Bauhaus they remained in close contact and Walter Gropius always tried to use his contacts and his influence to help Marcel Breuer.

Seeds of Modernism

(smow)blog: Walter Gropius was not the only important influence on Breuer’s work, but also de Stijl. Where and how did Marcel Breuer first come into contact with the work and personalities of de Stijl? Mathias Remmele: Members of de Stijl movement made contact with Bauhaus in the early 1920s and subsequently came to Weimar and held a lecture at which Bauhaus protagonists, including Breuer, and de Stil members got to know each other and each others works. And that had a very strong influence on Marcel Breuer, as can be seen in some of his earlier wood pieces. (smow)blog: To end, can one see Marcel Breuer as a Bauhäusler, or is he more someone who was associated with the school, but never really absorbed the ideological, philosophical side of the whole thing? Mathias Remmele: I think that one can see him without question as a Bauhäusler. The school greatly influenced him, and is associated with some very positive periods of his life. And after Bauhaus he remained in contact not just with Gropius but also with other individuals, for example Paul Klee who he greatly admired both painter and as a person. For me Marcel Breuer is simply the most important and most and interesting Bauhaus student!

László Moholy- Nagy

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Seeds of Modernism

László Moholy- Nagy photographed by Lucia Moholy c. 1925

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Lászlo Moholy Nagy László Moholy- Nagy was born in 1895 in Borsód, a village in southern Hungary (Moholy- Nagy). He received a good education growing up and went on to study law. Unfortunately, Moholy- Nagy came of age during World War I, which disrupted his studies in Law, meaning he had to join the army. Drawing was always a pastime of his, even before he joined the army. His sketches were known to be bright and full of life. (Hattula Moholy- Nagy). Eventually MoholyNagy went on to study in the Bauhaus .

Seeds of Modernism

“Beauty can be achieved in simplicity, purely through form and colour”

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Seeds of Modernism

The Influence of the Bauhaus

László Moholy-Nagy

Seeds of Modernism

Typophoto

“Typography is comm in type. Photography i presentation of what c apprehended. Typoph most exact rendering Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

The Influence of the Bauhaus

munication composed is the visual can be optically hoto is the visually of communication”

Seeds of Modernism

The third piece of design I will discuss is a piece of visual communications by László Moholy-Nagy. It is an advertising poster and the title of the piece is Pneumatik (Tire). The piece was designed in 1923-24. In this playful piece, (fig. 3) Moholy-Nagy creates an image by morphing the word Pneumatik (a reference to a type of tire) into a curved road shape. In the image, Moholy-Nagy uses vanishing point perspective with the letters to give the impression of the car speeding along a road toward the viewer. This poster is simple yet clever in design. It uses a dynamic combination of image and text to communicate a message to the viewer. This piece is a prime example of typophoto, a term coined by MoholyNagy to describe a piece made in a collage-like way using typography and photography (Sotheby’s). Moholy- Nagy expected this technique to become a very popular mean of communication for the modern era. Moholy- Nagy wrote himself ‘The typophoto governs the new tempo of the new visual literature’ (Bauhaus Photography, MIT Press, p. 138) (Sotheby’s). This particular example of a typophoto was very significant as it shows the endless possibilities for creativity by detaching type from its usual restrictions. It shows how effectively the message can still be communicated. As with many pieces created in the Bauhaus, this was designed with mass reproduction in mind.

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Pneumatik (Tire) 1923-24 Lászlo Moholy-Nagy

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“The spotlight that shines upon the Bauhaus also shines upon him” Hattula Moholy-Nagy

The Influence of the Bauhaus

László Moholy-Nagy at the Bauhaus Master Houses Dessau, 1920s

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Lászlo Moholy Nagy’s Preliminary Course 1923-28 An extract from bauhauskooperation.com

In 1923 László Moholy-Nagy took charge of the preliminary course and shifted the focus from artistic to technical issues. Rationality replaced romanticism and sensitivity to nature. In 1923, the Hungarian Constructivist László Moholy-Nagy joined the Bauhaus Weimar as the youngest master of form, supporting Walter Gropius in his orientation towards the new unity of art and technology. Moholy-Nagy, whose reputation was established by an exhibition at the gallery “Der Sturm” in Berlin, advocated the idea of the artist-engineer. He was suspicious of anything esoteric or romantic. As the head of the metal workshop, he promoted modern lighting design and the development of prototypes and therefore the transition from manual craftsmanship to industrial technologies. As the co-organiser and graphic designer of the Bauhaus books from 1924 and the Bauhaus magazine from 1926, Moholy-Nagy had a decisive influence on the international network and image of the Bauhaus.

His universal oeuvre ranged from light, lighting design, photography, photograms and film to kinetic-constructive systems and the Light-Space Modulator. In his opinion, the traditional panel painting was no longer contemporary. Moholy-Nagy adopted Itten’s teaching method in the preliminary course by asking students to carry out independent studies of material. He did not want to promote the pure individuality of his students, but to systematically introduce them, through a synthesis of the senses, to the technical foundations of statics, dynamics and equilibrium. Moholy-Nagy’s lessons on the surface, or the plane, focused on the medium of collage.

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Photograph of a Study in Balance, from László Moholy-Nagy’s Preliminary Course, author: Johannes Zabel / photo: Lucia Moholy, 1923–1924

Seeds of Modernism

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Unfortunately, a lot of the aims of the Bauhaus never became reality, but without a doubt, the 14 years it was opened caused a massive influence on the design world. Despite its closure due to political reasons, the style and concerns of the Bauhaus spread worldwide, influencing artists and designers to experiment with typography to convey messages and form following function to create products. Although not intended at first, these ideas have evolved into a style. The influence of this style can still be seen in current pieces of design, inspiring artists and designers to this day.

Seeds of Modernism

The Influence of the Bauhaus

Bibliography Electronic Sources “Idea - Bauhaus-Archiv: Museum Für Gestaltung, Berlin.” Bauhaus, www.bauhaus.de/en/ das_bauhaus/44_idee/. Date accessed 4/12/20 “Bauhaus.” Edited by History.com Editors, History.com, A&E Television Networks, 10 Aug. 2017, www.history.com/topics/art-history/bauhaus. Date accessed 4/12/20 “Marcel Breuer.” Edited by Robert Lewis, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/biography/Marcel-Breuer. Date accessed 8/12/20 “‘Wassily’ Armchair.” Metmuseum.org, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/ search/485067. Date accessed 8/12/20 “Tea Infuser and Strainer.” Metmuseum.org, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2020, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/491299. Date accessed 6/12/20 Moholy- Nagy, Hattula. “NAGY FOUNDATION: BIOGRAPHY.” MOHOLY, www.moholy-nagy.org/biography/. Date accessed 5/12/20 Breuer, Marcel. “Marcel Breuer. Club Chair (Model B3). 1927–1928: MoMA.” The Museum of Modern Art, www.moma.org/collection/works/2851. Brandt, Marianne. “Marianne Brandt. Teapot. 1924: MoMA.” The Museum of Modern Art, www.moma.org/collection/works/2438. Date accessed 6/12/20 Prabha. “Marianne Brandt, an Unsung Hero of the Bauhaus #BalanceforBetter.” Medium, Medium, 8 Mar. 2019, medium.com/@PerfectlyPrabha/marianne-brandt-an-unsung-hero-of-the-bauhaus-balanceforbetter-8fe7463bf542. Date accessed 6/12/20 Rawsthorn, Alice. “The Tale of a Teapot and Its Creator.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Dec. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/style/16iht-design17.1.8763227. html. Date accessed 6/12/20

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Schneider, Sven Raphael, and Sven Raphael Schneider. “The Wassily Chair By Marcel Breuer.” Gentleman’s Gazette, 17 Sept. 2016, Date accessed 8/12/20 www.gentlemansgazette.com/wassily-chair-model-b3-by-marcel-breuer/. “Now Photographs.” Moholy-Nagy, László ‘Adve ||| Abstract ||| Sotheby’s n08979lot6tvtcen, www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/photographs-n08979/lot.172.html. Klaus, Weber. “Tea Infuser (MT 49).” Back to Start Page, 1992, www.bauhauskooperation. com/knowledge/the-bauhaus/works/metal/tea-infuser-mt-49/. Date accessed 6/12/20 “Bauhaus.” Edited by Alicja Zelazko, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/topic/Bauhaus. Date accessed 6/12/20 Videos“Bauhaus design is everywhere, but it’s roots are political” Produced by Tabb, Michael for Quartz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X59FCW3vOlE BooksSiebenbrodt, Michael, and Lutz Schöbe. Bauhaus 1919-1933 Weimar-Dessau-Berlin. Parkstone International, 2009.

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Museum of Design Bauhaus Archive Berlin Museum of Design

Published in 2021 Edited by James Volks & Susan Harrison Institute of Art, Design + Technology Kill Avenue, Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin, Ireland, A96 KH79 Phone: +35312394000 Email: info@iadt.ie http://www.iadt.ie Copyright © 2021 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced to be transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher Text & cover design : Erin Busher Printed in IADT, Dún Laoghaire List of Plates bauhauskooperation.com page 15, page 16, page 31, page 61 dezeen.com page 16, page 43 lzf-lamps.com page 24, page 28 architectuul.com page 26 britannica.com page 36 moma.org. page 41 pinterest.com page 42 smow.com page 45 npg.si.edu page 48 widewalls.ch page 32, page 52 moholy-nagy.org page 59

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