Teaching and Workshops

Bauhaus & German Design

Course 1 · Chapter 4 · Teaching and Workshops

What the Bauhaus is most remembered for in education is a method: every student began with a preliminary course in basic form, colour and materials, then moved into a workshop to learn a craft, and finally, in theory, into building. That method, more than any single chair or lamp, is what spread to art schools around the world. This chapter describes how the teaching worked, what the workshops made, how the school's stated aim changed in 1923 from craft towards industry, and why historians disagree about how sharp that change really was. Names, dates and descriptions are from general knowledge and flagged for checking.

The Shape of the Course

1. The preliminary course

All new students took the Vorkurs, usually for six months, to unlearn habits and explore materials, colour, texture and form (check the length and whether it was compulsory throughout).

2. The workshops

Students then trained in a workshop, such as weaving, metalwork or carpentry, and could take a journeyman's examination before the local craft chamber (check the process).

3. Building

The manifesto's goal was architecture, but a full architecture department was not set up until later, under Hannes Meyer in Dessau (check the date; Chapter 6). Many students never reached it.

The Preliminary Course

Teacher	Approach (as usually described; check each)
Johannes Itten (1919 to 1923)	Exercises on contrasts, textures and rhythm, using natural materials; a strong personality who also brought in physical exercises and unusual beliefs (check). He left in 1923.
László Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers (from 1923)	Moholy-Nagy brought a more technical, constructivist approach; Albers, who had been a student, focused on how materials behave and on making more from less (check the division of roles and dates).
Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky	Taught form and colour theory in separate courses; Klee on the principles of pictorial form and Kandinsky on analytical drawing and colour (check titles and dates).

The idea. A common grounding in basic elements for every student, whether they became a weaver, a carpenter or an architect (check how far this was achieved).
The legacy. The "foundation course" in art and design schools around the world is often traced to it (check how direct the line is).
A myth to test. A popular story says Kandinsky asked students to match the three primary colours with a circle, a square and a triangle (check the source and what he actually said).

The Workshops

Workshop	What it made or did (check each)
Weaving	Textiles, rugs and wall hangings, later fabrics for industry; large and with many women students (Chapter 5).
Metal	Lamps, tableware and fittings; later strongly linked with industrial prototypes (Chapter 6).
Carpentry / furniture	Furniture, from expressive early pieces to the plain steel-and-wood designs of the Dessau years.
Pottery	Ceramics at a site outside Weimar for a time; closed or moved in the 1920s (check).
Wall painting	Colour schemes for rooms and buildings; later wallpaper designs (check).
Printing and typography	Posters, books and publications; later advertising and a new approach to lettering (Chapter 6).
Theatre	Experimental stage work led by Oskar Schlemmer, including the Triadic Ballet (check the date and the relationship to the school).

The dual system. Each workshop had a master of form (an artist) and a master of craft (a skilled maker), in the early years, to join art and making (check how long the system lasted).
Making things people could buy. Workshops took commissions and sold products to raise money, which pushed the school towards producing designs that could be reproduced (check the extent and the income).

1923: "Art and Technology"

In 1923 the school held its first big public exhibition in Weimar and published a catalogue (check the dates and the title). Gropius's lecture "Art and Technology: A New Unity" is the best-known statement of a shift in emphasis: from the craft ideal of 1919 towards design for industry and machine production (check the lecture's exact title and wording).

The exhibition

Held in the summer of 1923, it showed work from the workshops and a model house, the Haus am Horn, designed under Georg Muche's direction (check the designers and the date).

The shift

Industry, standard types and low-cost production rose in importance, and mystical and expressive ideas, such as Itten's, receded (check how fast and how completely).

The reasons

Possible reasons include the economic crisis of 1923 and the need to earn money, the influence of constructivist ideas, and Gropius's own interests (check; historians weigh these differently).

Sharp turn or gradual drift? Older accounts present 1923 as a clean break from craft to industry. More recent studies stress continuity: workshops kept making hand-crafted work, and industry was part of the Werkbund debate long before 1923 (Chapter 2; check). A fair summary is that the emphasis moved, not that one idea replaced the other overnight.

Books, Parties and Theatre

Bauhaus Books. A series of volumes by teachers and others, published from 1925 to the early 1930s (check the number and the dates), spread the school's ideas.
Festivals and parties. The school was known for lively parties and festivals, such as the lantern festival, and for costumes, which were part of its culture and also part of what annoyed critics (check the examples).
A community. Students and teachers often lived, ate and worked together, and the school developed a strong group identity (check how typical this was across the years).

A British comparison Many British art schools had a foundation year, and the "basic design" movement of the 1950s, associated with teachers such as Victor Pasmore and Richard Hamilton, drew on ideas that came, directly or indirectly, from the Bauhaus (check the line of influence). If you have studied art or design in Britain, some of what you learned may be a descendant of the preliminary course.

Check the details The Bauhaus is often described as if it had one curriculum. In fact the teaching changed with the teachers and directors, and surviving documents (curricula, student records) do not always match later accounts. Dates, teacher titles and workshop names vary between sources. Verify with the Bauhaus-Archiv or a specialist history before quoting them.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Describe the Bauhaus preliminary course: what it was for, who taught it, and why it mattered for later art education.

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Exercise 2

Explain the early "two masters" system in the workshops, and say what problem it was meant to solve.

→ Solution

Exercise 3

Explain what changed at the Bauhaus around 1923, and why historians disagree about how sharp the change was.

→ Solution

Quick Reference

The course: preliminary course, then a workshop, then (in theory) building (check)
Preliminary course teachers: Itten (1919 to 1923), then Moholy-Nagy and Albers; Klee and Kandinsky on form and colour (check)
Workshops: weaving, metal, furniture, pottery, wall painting, printing, theatre (check)
Two masters: a master of form and a master of craft, in the early years (check)
1923: the exhibition and "Art and Technology: A New Unity"; an emphasis shift, not a clean break (check)