Before Bauhaus
Bauhaus & German Design
Course 1 · Chapter 2 · Before the Bauhaus: Craft, Industry and the Werkbund
The Bauhaus did not appear from nowhere in 1919. By then Germany had spent two decades arguing about what design should be in an industrial country: should objects be crafted by artists, or made well by machines, and who should decide how they look? The answers were tried out in craft workshops, in an artists' colony, in a famous electrical company and in a national association called the Deutscher Werkbund, founded in 1907 (check). Many of the people who shaped the Bauhaus came out of that argument, and one of its founding questions is really theirs. This chapter sets out the background, the main figures and the big 1914 disagreement. Names, dates and attributions are from general knowledge and flagged for checking.
The Problem They Were Trying to Solve
Industry had arrived
Germany industrialised fast after unification in 1871 (check), and factories were turning out furniture, tableware and buildings in large numbers, often decorated with imitation historical ornament.
Critics disliked the result
Reformers argued that machine-made goods were ugly or dishonest, and looked to craft traditions for a better model (check which critics, and how widely their views were shared).
No agreed answer
One camp wanted a return to handwork, another wanted good design for industry, and a third wanted a new artistic style. The debate between them runs through this chapter and into the Bauhaus.
Three Ingredients
| Ingredient | What it was | Why it matters here (check each) |
|---|---|---|
| Arts and Crafts (Britain) | A reform movement, associated with William Morris and his firm of the 1860s, that valued hand craftsmanship and honest materials. | German reformers studied it closely; Hermann Muthesius lived in London in the 1890s and wrote about English houses (check the dates and the book). |
| Jugendstil (Germany) | The German form of Art Nouveau, named after the Munich magazine Jugend (check), with flowing, plant-like ornament. | It showed that artists could design everyday objects, but its decoration was later criticised as too ornamental for industry. |
| Artists' colonies and workshops | Places such as the colony at Darmstadt (1899) and the Deutsche Werkstätten at Hellerau, which made furniture to artists' designs (check both). | They tested making good design available to more buyers, and showed the tension between craft and machine production. |
The Deutscher Werkbund, 1907
The Werkbund was founded in Munich in 1907 as an association of artists, architects, manufacturers and writers (check the date and place). Its aim was to improve the quality of German goods by joining design, craft and industry, in part so that German products could compete abroad (check the stated aims).
- Who. Founding members included the architects Hermann Muthesius, Peter Behrens and Richard Riemerschmid, the designer Bruno Paul, and the politician Friedrich Naumann as a prominent supporter (check the list of founders).
- How. Exhibitions, a yearbook and publications, and links with firms that wanted better-designed products (check the main exhibitions).
- What it believed. That quality, honest materials and good form could be a national and commercial strength, though members disagreed about how to get there (see the 1914 argument below).
- Why it matters. It made design a public topic in Germany, and gave the future Bauhaus a ready-made climate of ideas and a network of supporters and critics (check how directly the two are linked).
The AEG Case: Design for a Company
Peter Behrens was an architect and designer who became artistic adviser to the electrical firm AEG in Berlin around 1907 (check the date and his exact title). He designed AEG's factory buildings, products and printed material, which is often cited as an early example of a coherent corporate design (check how new this was).
Buildings
The AEG turbine factory in Berlin, completed in 1909 (check), is famous for its large glass and steel hall and is often called a landmark of modern industrial architecture.
Products
Behrens designed products such as electric kettles and lamps with simplified forms that could be made in series (check which products and the extent of his role).
Identity
He also worked on the company's logo, typography and publicity so that the firm looked consistent (check the details).
The 1914 Argument: Standard or Individual?
At the Werkbund's exhibition in Cologne in 1914 (check), a disagreement about the future of design came into the open. It is usually told as a clash between Hermann Muthesius and Henry van de Velde (check the account, and note that historians say the real positions were less neat).
| Side | Position as usually summarised (check) |
|---|---|
| Muthesius | Design should move towards standard types (Typisierung) that suit mass production and an international market. Standardisation would raise taste and make goods that could compete. |
| Van de Velde | Artists must remain free to create individual forms, and a fixed standard would stifle invention and the artist's role. |
- What was at stake. The role of the designer: an artist expressing a personal vision, or a professional serving industry and society.
- What happened. The argument was never settled, and the First World War began later in 1914 (check what happened to the exhibition).
- The Bauhaus's place. The school inherited both sides. Its early years leaned towards the artist and the workshop and its later years towards standard types and industry (Chapters 3, 4 and 6; check how clean this split is).
The Road to Weimar
- Van de Velde in Weimar. The Belgian designer Henry van de Velde set up an arts and crafts school in Weimar around 1907, in a building he designed (check), which the Bauhaus later used.
- The handover. When he left Germany during the war, he is said to have suggested Walter Gropius, among others, as a possible successor (check; the history of this recommendation is disputed).
- The merger. In 1919 Gropius combined the arts and crafts school with the Weimar academy of fine art to create the Staatliches Bauhaus (Chapter 3; check the institutions' names).
Exercises
Explain what the Deutscher Werkbund was, when it was founded, and what it tried to achieve.
Summarise the 1914 disagreement between standardisation and individual artistic freedom, and say which side the Bauhaus was closer to, and why that is debated.
Give three ways in which Peter Behrens's work for AEG joined design and industry, and explain why that mattered to Gropius.
Quick Reference
- Background: Arts and Crafts, Jugendstil, artists' colonies and craft workshops (check)
- The Werkbund: founded in Munich in 1907 to join design, craft and industry (check)
- AEG: Peter Behrens's work from about 1907, including the 1909 turbine factory (check)
- The 1914 argument: Muthesius (standard types) versus van de Velde (individual artists), as usually told (check)
- The road to Weimar: van de Velde's school, then Gropius's merger in 1919 (check)