Weimar 1919
Bauhaus & German Design
Course 1 · Chapter 3 · Weimar, 1919: A School Is Founded
In April 1919 (check), in the months after Germany's defeat in the First World War, Walter Gropius opened a new art and design school in the small city of Weimar. He called it the Staatliches Bauhaus, "State Building House", and published a short manifesto with a woodcut of a cathedral on the cover. The school began as a craft-based, idealistic and somewhat mystical place, quite unlike the plain, industrial image later attached to the name. This chapter describes how it was founded, what the manifesto said, who the first teachers were, and why Weimar and the school came to quarrel. Names, dates and quotations are from general knowledge and flagged for checking, including the wording of translations.
The Setting
A defeated country
Germany had lost the war and the monarchy had ended in 1918 (check). The country was poor, politically unstable and short of materials, and many artists hoped for a fresh start.
A new republic, in Weimar
The National Assembly that wrote the republic's constitution met in Weimar in 1919, which is why the period is called the Weimar Republic (check). The school and the republic began in the same town in the same year, a coincidence often noted.
A town with a past
Weimar was the city of Goethe and Schiller, proud of its cultural heritage and conservative in many ways (check). A radical art school there was always going to be controversial.
How the School Was Created
- Two schools, one. Gropius joined two existing institutions in Weimar: the academy of fine art and the school of arts and crafts that Henry van de Velde had set up (check the exact names and the date of the merger).
- The director. Gropius had been named as a possible successor to van de Velde in 1915, and was appointed head of the combined school in 1919 (check; see Chapter 2).
- A state school. It was funded by the state of Thuringia, which is why "Staatliches" (state) is in the name (check). That tied its survival to local politics (see below).
- Guild language. Teachers were called masters, students apprentices and then journeymen, borrowing the vocabulary of the medieval building lodge (check the terms and how strictly they were used).
The Manifesto and the Cathedral
Gropius's founding text, the Manifesto and Programme of the Staatliches Bauhaus, appeared in April 1919 (check). It is short, passionate and not very practical.
| Element | What it said or showed (check wording and translation) |
|---|---|
| The aim | That "the ultimate aim of all creative activity is the building", and that all the arts should again be brought together in architecture. |
| The call to craft | That architects, sculptors and painters must "return to the crafts", because there is no essential difference between artist and craftsman. |
| The attack on class | It rejected the "arrogant barrier" between craftsmen and artists, and called for a new guild of craftsmen. |
| The woodcut | The cover showed a cathedral with three stars, by the painter Lyonel Feininger, often read as a symbol of a shared, spiritual, collective building project (check the title and meaning). |
The First Masters
| Master | Role at the start (check each) |
|---|---|
| Walter Gropius | Founder and director; an architect. |
| Johannes Itten | Swiss teacher who ran the preliminary course from 1919 and was very influential until he left in 1923; known for unusual methods and for his religious interests (check the details). |
| Lyonel Feininger | Painter and printmaker, who made the manifesto woodcut and led the print workshop. |
| Gerhard Marcks | Sculptor who led the pottery workshop. |
| Georg Muche | Painter who joined in 1920 and taught the weaving workshop alongside others (check his role). |
| Later arrivals | Among them Paul Klee and Oskar Schlemmer (1921) and Wassily Kandinsky (1922), and László Moholy-Nagy in 1923 (check each date). |
- Two teachers for each subject. Early workshops were run by a master of form (an artist) and a master of craft (a skilled craftsman), reflecting the aim of joining art and making (check the system and its length).
- Who studied. Several dozen students at first, growing to a few hundred over the school's life, including many women (check the numbers; Chapter 5).
A School at Odds with Its Town
Local suspicion
Many townspeople and local artists distrusted the school's unconventional students, its politics and its parties (check the sources, which often come from opponents).
Pressure inside
Gropius and Itten came to disagree about the school's direction, craft and spirit against industry and design, and Itten left in 1923 (check the causes).
Politics and money
After a change of government in Thuringia in the early 1920s, funding was cut and the school's contracts were ended, leading the masters to look for a new home in 1924 and 1925 (check the dates and sequence).
- The result. The school left Weimar for Dessau in 1925 (Chapter 6; check the date), after about six years.
- Why the story matters. It shows how a state-funded art school depended on regional politics, a theme that returns when the school is closed in 1933 (Chapter 7).
Exercises
Describe how and when the Staatliches Bauhaus was founded, and which two schools it brought together.
Summarise the aim of Gropius's 1919 manifesto and explain what the cathedral woodcut stood for. Say what the manifesto does not mention that people expect.
Give two reasons the school and the town of Weimar came into conflict, and say why the school's funding made it vulnerable.
Quick Reference
- Founded: April 1919 in Weimar, by Walter Gropius, merging two schools (check)
- The manifesto: building as the aim of all the arts; a return to crafts; Feininger's cathedral woodcut (check)
- Early masters: Gropius, Itten, Feininger, Marcks, Muche; Klee, Schlemmer and Kandinsky later (check)
- Early character: craft-based, guild-like and idealistic, not yet industrial
- The conflict: local suspicion, internal disagreement and Thuringian politics, leading to the move to Dessau in 1925 (check)