Dessau
Bauhaus & German Design
Course 1 · Chapter 6 · Dessau, 1925: The Building and the Objects
The Dessau years (1925 to 1932, check) are the period most people mean when they say "Bauhaus". The school had a purpose-built home designed by Gropius, its workshops were producing prototypes for industry, and the objects that made its name (a tubular-steel chair, a metal lamp, a lower-case alphabet) date from this time. It is also the period in which the school's image of plain, functional, industrial design took shape, and in which it began to cooperate seriously with manufacturers. This chapter covers the move, the buildings, the objects, the typography and the industrial partnerships. Names, dates and attributions are from general knowledge and flagged for checking, and credit for individual designs is often disputed.
Why Dessau?
An offer
After the Thuringian funding cuts (Chapter 3), several towns made offers, and Dessau, an industrial city in Saxony-Anhalt, agreed to fund the school and build it a new home (check the town's role and the mayor's, Fritz Hesse).
An industrial city
Dessau was home to the Junkers aircraft works and other industry, which suited the school's growing interest in industry (check the connections).
A new status
In Dessau the school was renamed the Hochschule für Gestaltung (a college of design), with professors instead of masters (check the dates and the titles; many people kept saying "masters").
The Building and the Houses
| Project | What it is and why it is known (check each) |
|---|---|
| The school building (1925 to 1926) | Designed by Gropius's office; opened in December 1926. A set of linked wings, with a workshop block famous for its glass curtain wall, a studio block with balconies, and a connecting bridge. |
| The masters' houses | A group of houses in a pine wood near the school for Gropius and the teachers, including Klee, Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy and Feininger; plain white volumes in the new style. |
| The Törten estate (1926 to 1928) | A housing estate in Dessau built with standardised, factory-made parts, an experiment in low-cost housing (check, including the technical problems that were later reported). |
- What it was meant to show. That a building could be designed from its functions, with the workshops, classrooms and living spaces arranged in separate wings joined together (check how Gropius described it).
- Its fate. Damaged in the Second World War, restored later, and inscribed as a World Heritage site together with other Bauhaus places (check the dates; Chapter 10).
- The look. This is the building people picture when they say "Bauhaus architecture", but it came after six years of a school in Weimar with a different character (Chapters 3 and 4).
The Objects
| Object | Designer and story (check each, attribution is often disputed) |
|---|---|
| Tubular-steel club chair (1925 to 1926) | Marcel Breuer, who led the furniture workshop; later nicknamed the "Wassily" chair after Kandinsky (check when and why the name came). A story says he was inspired by bicycle handlebars (check). Tubular steel was also used by other designers around then (see Chapter 1). |
| Table lamp with glass and metal (around 1923 to 1924) | Associated with Wilhelm Wagenfeld, with Karl Jucker, made in Weimar rather than Dessau, but a standard example of the "Bauhaus lamp" (check the designers, the date and the place). |
| Kandem lamp (about 1928) | Associated with Marianne Brandt and Hin Bredendieck; a bedside lamp made in volume by an industrial firm (check the designers, the manufacturer and the date). |
| Wallpapers (around 1929) | A wallpaper range produced with a commercial firm and sold widely (check the firm and the numbers). |
| Textiles | Fabrics produced for industry, many by women in the weaving workshop (Chapter 5). |
Typography: One Alphabet?
- The new look. In Dessau the printing workshop became a printing and advertising workshop under Herbert Bayer, who designed plain, sans-serif lettering (check his title and dates).
- Lower case. Bayer's "universal" alphabet of 1925 used only lower-case letters, on the argument that spoken language has no capitals, and the school's stationery adopted small letters (check the date and the reasoning).
- The argument. Supporters thought it was simple and logical; critics found it harder to read in German, where nouns are capitalised (check the debate).
- What it influenced. The sans-serif, grid-based layouts associated with the school shaped twentieth-century graphic design, but many other designers in Germany and elsewhere were working in similar ways at the same time (check, and note the "New Typography" movement).
Cooperation with Industry
- How it worked. The school sold designs to firms, often through a company the school set up for the purpose, and took a share of the income (check the arrangement and the firm's name).
- The results. Lamps, wallpapers and textiles reached customers, which brought money into the school as well as publicity (check the extent).
- The tension. Teachers and students disagreed about how far the school should serve industry and how far it should stay a place of experiment, a debate that continued under the next director (Chapter 7).
Exercises
Describe the Dessau school building and say why it became the image of "Bauhaus architecture", even though it came after six years in Weimar.
Choose the tubular-steel chair or the Kandem lamp. Describe it, say who is credited with it, and give one caution about the attribution.
Explain the argument for a lower-case-only alphabet, and why it was controversial in German.
Quick Reference
- The move: to Dessau in 1925, funded by the city (check)
- The building: Gropius's school (opened 1926) with its glass workshop wall, plus the masters' houses and the Törten estate (check)
- The objects: Breuer's tubular-steel chair, the Wagenfeld lamp, the Kandem lamp, wallpapers (check the attributions)
- Typography: Bayer's plain lower-case alphabet, 1925 (check)
- Industry: prototypes sold to firms, some made in volume, many not cheap (check)