The Bauhaus Manifesto “The ultimate goal of all art is the building! The ornamentation of the building was once the main purpose of the visual arts, and they were considered indispensable parts of the great building. Today, they exist in complacent isolation, from which they can only be salvaged by the purposeful and cooperative endeavors of all artisans. Architects, painters and sculptors must learn a new way of seeing and understanding the composite character of the building, both as a totality and in terms of its parts. Their work will then re-imbue itself with the spirit of architecture, which it lost in salon art. The art schools of old were incapable of producing this unity – and how could they, for art may not be taught. They must return to the workshop. This world of mere drawing and painting of draughtsmen and applied artists must at long last become a world that builds. When a young person who senses within himself a love for creative endeavor begins his career, as in the past, by learning a trade, the unproductive “artist” will no longer be condemned to the imperfect practice of art because his skill is now preserved in craftsmanship, where he may achieve excellence. Architects, sculptors, painters – we all must return to craftsmanship! For there is no such thing as “art by profession”. There is no essential difference between the artist and the artisan. The artist is an exalted artisan. Merciful heaven, in rare moments of illumination beyond man’s will, may allow art to blossom from the work of his hand, but the foundations of proficiency are indispensable to every artist. This is the original source of creative design. So let us therefore create a new guild of craftsmen, free of the divisive class pretensions that endeavored to raise a prideful barrier between craftsmen and artists! Let us strive for, conceive and create the new building of the future that will unite every discipline, architecture and sculpture and painting, and which will one day rise heavenwards from the million hands of craftsmen as a clear symbol of a new belief to come."
The Design Masters of the Bauhaus Bauhaus Origins In 1919 the German architect Walter Gropius founded a new school of the arts that would teach artists to harness the power of the machine and use it to benefit mankind. This new school was called the Bauhaus, or Builder’s House and it emphasized artists working with industry to create well designed goods. Walter Gropius decided to start this new school after World War I, he had served in the army during the war and seen first hand the destruction caused by the new machines. After the war Germany along with the rest of Europe was devastated and Gropius believed it was time for a change, instead of the man serving the machine it was time for the machine to serve man and the Gropius believed that art and design was the perfect medium to spread this change. The Bauhaus along with many other artists working at the turn of the century were very utopian and idealistic and they believed that art could change society and that well designed interiors and objects can change the way people interact with the world. When the Bauhaus officially opened it doors all kinds of students arrived looking to attend including traditional students, World War I veterans, and women. Tuition was free and all supplies were provided for the students provided that the artwork they created belonged to school and could be sold to support the school. In addition the school worked hard to be as self-sufficient as possible and so every student was required to work in the school garden which provided most of their food.
In their workshops students and teachers alike worked to create necessary items such as blankets for the dorm beds, furniture, and light fixtures. There was also a lot of emphasis on collaboration between the students and staff to create objects and interiors with a unified aesthetic. When student’s first entered the Bauhaus they began in the worker’s program which was their foundation year. The program focused heavily on the study of materials, color theory, and formal relationships. After the students completed the program they entered the workshop program of their choice, the workshops available were metal working, carpentry, pottery, stained glass, typography, stage design, and weaving. Women were only allowed to enter the weaving workshop. However they did not have to necessarily stay there. Walter Gropius modeled the workshops after the medieval guild system with each workshop having a Master of Form and a Master of Works. The Master of Form was in charge of and the Master of Works. The Master of Form was in charge of the overall direction of the workshop and guided the curriculum while the Master of Works taught and worked with the students daily. While each workshop stressed on designing and working with industry only the weaving and ceramic workshops were successful at doing so. Soon after the school started Gropius realized that while he had started the school by following William Morris’s model, that it would not be possible to continue doing so.
Instead he began to push for students to work more with the machine because strictly hand made work limited their audience and the possibility for change. In addition to the workshops the students were taught geometry, mathematics, and business management to help them work with industry.
3
The school had begun in the Weimar Republic which was a rural center that had not been particularly welcoming so after a few years they moved to Dessau. Dessau was an industrial center that was thrilled to have a school that wanted to work with their factories so it was an ideal location. They built a new building that was designed to house all the workshops and students, and each new workshop was built according to the specifications of the students and teachers. Again the students and staff worked to create all the furniture, wall hangings, and light fixtures within the building which was designed entirely to fit one aesthetic, which became the machine aesthetic they were known for. So after a rocky start the school was finally beginning to accomplish its mission and teach the next generation of designers. However it all came to an end in 1933 when the Bauhaus was forced to close its doors due to the growing political unrest in Germany. World War II was quickly approaching and it was becoming difficult for the school to remain financially stable as well as dangerous for some like Gunta StÓ§lzl to remain in Germany. However when the students and teachers left they took the Bauhaus with them, and so while it had only been open for fourteen years the Bauhaus ideals spread very quickly and have left a large impact on the way artists and designers work even today.
The Beauty of Total Design The Bauhaus was founded on the ideal that well designed objects and interiors could change the world. They strongly believed in the concept of total design which is the designing an object with complete consideration of its functionality while still making it visually appealing. An object can be decorated as long as the design furthers the function. Essentially a teapot should look and function as a teapot while still being beautiful. So why does it matter if an object is functional and beautiful? Well it is the belief of many artists and designers that beautiful surroundings are key to living a fulfilled happy life and that by creating something that can do its function well then you are improving someone’s life and therefore society benefits.4 In addition to improving the standard of living the Bauhaus was interested in creating a new modern aesthetic to serve the new modern world. They developed an aesthetic based on the machine with clean simple lines, angles, and use of strong color. Their designs were all created with the intention that they could be made by machine, even objects that were never intended to be made industrially. In addition they were interested in using materials honestly so in their designs they left the materials like wood and metal exposed instead of hiding them within the structure of the object. 5 Their goal was to create a new well designed and functional aesthetic that could perfectly express the function of the object and they adopted the motto - less is more. This simple and streamlined aesthetic became known as the Bauhaus style however as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe pointed out the Bauhaus was more of an idea that anything else. 6
The Masters Anni Albers Anni Albers was born in 1899 in Berlin. She attended art school in Berlin until the 1920’s when she left to attend the Bauhaus. She had wanted to study to be a painter however the Bauhaus only allowed women to study in the weaving workshop so instead she put her energy into transforming textiles. 7 In 1930 she graduated from the Bauhaus and while she began to take on freelance work, she was still strongly aligned with the Bauhaus. She was fascinated with Peruvian weaving and spent a lot of time researching the techniques and patterns they were able to create on simple back strap looms. She was also greatly influenced by the work of Paul Klee, whose work she admired and he along with the Andean weavers remained one of her greatest influences. 8 Anni was interested in visual sign language, and often explored the idea of the pictograph, the calligraph, and the ideograph in her work.9 She also talked about how she wanted to create places that the viewer could visually rest so her work employs strong linear elements along with larger blocks where the eye can rest.10 Soon Albers began to use techniques to hand manipulate a floating weft which she then used to draw on the fabric.
Wall Hanging, 1926, Silk, 72 x 48 inches, Anni Albers Image Courtesy of Michele Fricke
La Luz, 1946, Anni Albers, Image Courtesy of Michele Fricke
Gunta Stölzl
Gunta Stӧlzl was born in 1897 in Munich. She was attended the School of the Arts in Munich. In 1919 she began studying at the Bauhaus in Weimar. She kept a journal most of her life and her entries show the energy and enthusiasm of the new school. 11 She was appointed head of the weaving department in 1926 and was loved by all the students. Stӧlzl was always researching new materials such as rayon, cellophane, fiber glass, and metal. 12 She was also interested in how people interacted with those materials and learning how to use that material in an informed and practical manner. Stölzl encouraged her students to also experiment with new materials and learn their properties working intuitively she stressed good craftsmanship and working in an educated manner. In her own work Stölzl loved to experiment with various techniques, and she particularly loved tapestry. She often used a variety of bright colors and changing patterns and many of her wall hangings are about the effects of different colors next to each other. However she also continued to create work that was meant to made by industry including carpet designs and wall hangings. In that body of work she simplified her patterns to geometric forms and stripes which she particularly loved because they were easy to create with machines. In those designs the colors are more subdued with only one or two bright colors accenting the piece.
Carpet Design, 1925, Gunta Stรถlzl, Image Courtesy of The Gunta Stรถlzl Foundation
Slit Tapestry Red & Green, 1927, Gunta Stรถlzl, Image Courtesy of Michele Fricke
Marianne Brandt
. Marianne Brandt arrived at the Bauhaus in 1924, and was the first woman to study in the metalworking studio.13 She studied in the metal shop with Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and replaced him as director of the metal working studio in 1928. She was the director of the shop for only year and then left the Bauhaus to work on other project. She made a variety of different things but worked primarily in metal and glass. She also worked on the light fixtures and tableware designed for the school, however she is best known for her meticulously crafted teapots. The teapots are simple and geometric but show attention to detail and function. Each teapot pours perfectly without any drips and the handles are heat-resistant and made from simple and beautiful materials such as ebony. 14 The simple geometric shapes would be easy for a machine to reproduce, though many of these teapots were never meant to be mass-produced.
Teapot, ND, Marianne Brandt , Image Courtesy of Bauhaus Online
Teapot, ND, Marianne Brandt , Image Courtesy of Michele Fricke
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohw was born in Aachen in 1886. As a child he had a talent from drawing and was eventually apprenticed to a bricklayer. 15 After he completed his apprenticeship he was recommended to several architecture offices and went to work with well known architects like John Martens and Bruno Paul. In 1913 he opened his own architecture firm and began to design houses. Like Gropius, Mies van der Rohe had fought in World War I, he had been conscripted into the army in 1915. In 1930 he became the director of the Bauhaus and remained so until it was forced to close in 1933. 16 He recognized that an environment was meant to be lived in so he wanted to create spaces that beautiful and comfortable as well as functional. His work also emphasizes open space and movement. Mies van der Rohe was very interested in the honesty of materials so his chairs are made with industrial materials like metal tubing. The tubing is bent into streamlined modern forms that have clean lines and emphasize the negative space remaining. They are simple and elegant despite being a common and functional material.
Chair, ND, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Image Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Barcelona Chair, 1927, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Image Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Endnotes Magdalena Droste, Bauhaus 1919 – 1933 (Los Angeles: Taschen, 2006) 52. 2
“Teaching,” Bauhaus Online, accessed March 25, 2014. http://bauhaus-
online.de/en/atlas/das-bauhaus/lehre 3
Magdalena Droste, Bauhaus 1919 – 1933 (Los Angeles: Taschen, 2006) 16.
4
William Smock, The Bauhaus Ideal: Then and Now (Chicago: Academy
Chicago Publishers, 2004) 4. 5
Magdalena Droste, Bauhaus 1919 – 1933 (Los Angeles: Taschen, 2006) 24.
6
Magdalena Droste, Bauhaus 1919 – 1933 (Los Angeles: Taschen, 2006) 45.
7
Virginia Gardner Troy, Anni Albers and Ancient American Textiles: From
Bauhaus to Black Mountain (Vermont: Ashgate, 2002) 12. 8
Virginia Gardner Troy, Anni Albers and Ancient American Textiles: From
Bauhaus to Black Mountain (Vermont: Ashgate, 2002) 28. 9
Nicholas Fox Weber, Pandora Tabatabai Asbaghi, Anni Albers (New York: The
Solomon R. Gugggenheim Foundation, 1999) 33. 10
Nicholas Fox Weber, Pandora Tabatabai Asbaghi, Anni Albers (New York: The
Solomon R. Gugggenheim Foundation, 1999) 3. 11
“Biography,” Gunta Stolzl, accessed April 2, 2014.
http://www.guntastolzl.org/About/Biography/2222182_DrZ3T4#! i=116008957&k=62QsXj5. 12
“The Bauhaus, 1919 – 1933,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accessed April
3, 2014, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bauh/hd_bauh.htm. 13
“Marianne Brandt,” Bauhaus Online, accessed April 4, 2014.
http://bauhaus-online.de/en/atlas/personen/marianne-brandt 14
“Marianne Brandt,” Bauhaus Online, accessed April 4, 2014.
http://bauhaus-online.de/en/atlas/personen/marianne-brandt 15
“Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,” Bauhaus Online, accessed April 1, 2014.
http://bauhaus-online.de/en/atlas/personen/ludwig-mies-van-der-rohe. 16
“Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,” Bauhaus Online, accessed April 3, 2014.
http://bauhaus-online.de/en/atlas/personen/ludwig-mies-van-der-rohe.
Images Cover Image Courtesy of Bauhaus 1919 – 1933. Magdalena Droste Los Angeles: Taschen, 2006. Image of the Bauhaus Dessau Courtesy of Bauhaus Online Images of the Artists Courtesy of Bauhaus Online
Bibliography Droste, Magdalena. Bauhaus 1919 – 1933. Los Angeles: Taschen, 2006. Bauhaus Online. “Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,” Accessed April 3, 2014. http://bauhaus-online.de/en/atlas/personen/ludwig-mies-van-der-rohe. Bauhaus Online. “Gunta Stölzl,” Accessed April 6, 2014. http://bauhaus-online.de/en/atlas/personen/gunta-stoelzl. Bauhaus Online. “Marianne Brandt,” Accessed April 4, 2014. http://bauhaus-online.de/en/atlas/personen/marianne-brandt. Bauhaus Online. “Teaching,” Accessed March 25, 2014. http://bauhaus-online.de/en/atlas/das-bauhaus/lehre. Gunta Stolzl. “Biography,” Accessed April 2, 2014. http://www.guntastolzl.org/About/Biography/2222182_DrZ3T4#! i=116008957&k=62QsXj5. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “The Bauhaus, 1919 – 1933,” Accessed April 3, 2014. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bauh/hd_bauh.htm. Mies van der Rohe Society. “Legacy,” Accessed March 27, 2014. http://www.miessociety.org/legacy/. Smock, William. The Bauhaus Ideal: Then and Now. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 2004. Troy, Virginia Gardner. Anni Albers and Ancient American Textiles: From Bauhaus to Black Mountain. Vermont: Ashgate, 2002. Weber, Nicholas Fox, Pandora Tabatabai Asbaghi. Anni Albers. New York: The Solomon R. Gugggenheim Foundation, 1999.