What Was Bauhaus?
Bauhaus & German Design
Course 1 · Chapter 1 · What Was the Bauhaus? Scope & Sources
"Bauhaus" is one of the most used and least precise words in design. It names a real school, the Staatliches Bauhaus, which existed in Germany from 1919 to 1933 (check), and it is also used loosely for a look: plain shapes, steel tubes, white walls. The two are not the same, and much of what people say about "the Bauhaus" is about the look and not the school. This opening chapter separates them, sets out what the course covers and leaves out, lists common myths to test, and says which sources to trust. Names, dates and attributions are from general knowledge and flagged for checking, since design history is full of disputed credit.
A School, Not Just a Style
The school
The Staatliches Bauhaus ("State Building House") was an art and design school founded in Weimar in 1919 by the architect Walter Gropius, which moved to Dessau in 1925 and to Berlin in 1932 before closing in 1933 (check each date). It had three directors: Gropius, Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (check the years).
The style
"Bauhaus style" is a later and looser label for modern, plain, industrial-looking design. Many people who used the look never studied at the school, and the school itself changed its look over its 14 years (check the length).
The idea
The founding idea was to bring art, craft and architecture together in one training, so that designers would understand materials, making and building (check Gropius's 1919 programme). How far industry and mass production were part of it from the start is debated (Chapter 4).
Why It Matters
- Its teaching method. The preliminary course and the workshop training shaped how design is taught in many countries (check the extent of the influence, which is itself argued over).
- Its objects. Chairs, lamps, typefaces and housing ideas associated with the school are still produced, copied and discussed (Chapters 6 and 8).
- Its people. Teachers and students scattered across the world after 1933, taking the ideas with them, and women played a larger part than the old accounts allowed (Chapters 5 and 7; check the evidence).
- Its story. A school closed by a dictatorship is also a story about politics and culture in Germany between the wars (check how far the school was political).
What the Course Covers
- Before and during. The background of craft reform and the Werkbund (Chapter 2), then the school itself in Weimar, Dessau and Berlin (Chapters 3 to 7).
- Themes. Teaching and workshops (Chapter 4), the women of the Bauhaus (Chapter 5), and design for the everyday home (Chapter 8).
- After. Exile, and the post-war story through the Ulm School of Design, Braun and divided Germany (Chapters 7 and 9), then the Bauhaus today (Chapter 10).
- Left out. Detailed biographies and the full history of fine art. Painting is covered only where it fed the teaching, and the course describes objects in words and tables, because many photographs and designs are still in copyright (check).
Five Myths to Test
| The claim | The problem with it (check each) |
|---|---|
| "Bauhaus means white, flat-roofed boxes." | The school's first years were crafts-based and the teaching of architecture came later in the school's life (check the date); the white-box look is largely a later and wider modern-architecture style. |
| "The Bauhaus invented the tubular-steel chair." | Marcel Breuer's steel furniture at the school was important, but tubular steel was also being used by other designers at about the same time (check who and when). |
| "It was all about mass production for the masses." | Many Bauhaus objects were hand-made or expensive in practice, and the balance between craft and industry shifted over time (check examples and prices). |
| "The Bauhaus was a single, agreed style." | The school had different directors and teachers with different views, and its approach changed; the early Weimar years and the Dessau years look quite different (check). |
| "Gropius designed everything." | Much of the school's best-known work was by teachers, students and workshop teams, and credit has been unevenly given (check attributions, especially for women). |
Sources and How to Check Them
- The Bauhaus institutions. The Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung in Berlin, the Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau and the Klassik Stiftung Weimar (the Bauhaus Museum Weimar) publish collections, scholarship and visitor information (check the websites and which sites are open).
- UNESCO. The World Heritage listing for the Bauhaus and its sites in Weimar, Dessau and Bernau gives dates and descriptions (check the inscription years).
- Museum collections abroad. The Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard holds Gropius's archive, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York staged an influential Bauhaus exhibition in 1938 (check both).
- Histories by specialists. Books by curators and historians, such as Magdalena Droste's Bauhaus (check the title and edition), are better starting points than general design books.
- Brands and shops. Companies that sell "Bauhaus" furniture and lamps present a simplified story; check against museum catalogues.
Exercises
Explain the difference between the Bauhaus school and the "Bauhaus style", and give two reasons the difference matters.
Pick one of the five myths and say what you would look up to test it, and which kind of source you would trust most.
A shop describes a chair as "an original Bauhaus design". List three things you would check before accepting the description.
Quick Reference
- The school: the Staatliches Bauhaus, 1919 to 1933, in Weimar, Dessau and Berlin (check)
- The directors: Gropius, Hannes Meyer, Mies van der Rohe (check the years)
- The style: a later, looser label; not the same thing as the school
- Themes: teaching, women, the everyday home, exile, the post-war legacy
- Sources: the Bauhaus institutions, UNESCO, museum collections, specialist histories