The Everyday Home
Bauhaus & German Design
Course 1 · Chapter 8 · The Everyday Home
Much of what people call "Bauhaus" in the home, from the flat roof to the fitted kitchen and the standard paper size, did not come from the school at all. It came from a wider movement in Weimar Germany that tried to house millions of people well, cheaply and quickly, using new methods and standard parts. The Bauhaus took part in that movement, and shared many of its ideas, but it was one strand among several. This chapter sets out the housing problem, the "New Building" movement, three famous examples (the Weissenhof estate, the Frankfurt kitchen and DIN standards), and where the Bauhaus does and does not fit. Names, dates and attributions are from general knowledge and flagged for checking.
The Problem
A housing shortage
After the war and during the 1920s, Germany's cities were short of decent, affordable homes, and many families lived in crowded, poor conditions (check the figures).
Public money
City governments and housing associations built large estates, supported by taxes and public funding in the mid-1920s, which gave architects the chance to try new ideas on a big scale (check how the funding worked and when it ended).
A new approach
Architects and officials wanted to use standard parts, rational planning and plain forms to build well at low cost, a movement often called Neues Bauen, "New Building" (check the term and its relation to New Objectivity).
Three Landmarks
| Landmark | What it was (check each) | Link to the Bauhaus |
|---|---|---|
| Weissenhof estate, Stuttgart (1927) | A Werkbund exhibition of model housing directed by Mies van der Rohe, with buildings by about seventeen architects from several countries, including Gropius, Le Corbusier, Behrens, Oud and Mies himself. | Gropius and Mies, two Bauhaus directors, designed buildings there, but the exhibition was the Werkbund's, not the school's. |
| The Frankfurt kitchen (1926) | A compact fitted kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky for the city's housing programme under Ernst May, installed in thousands of flats (check the numbers). | None. It belongs to the New Frankfurt programme, not to the school, a common mix-up. |
| DIN standards (from 1917) | A German body for industrial standards, whose paper size standard (the basis of A4) dates from the early 1920s (check the dates and the standard's number). | Shares the aim of standardisation, which Muthesius argued for in 1914 (Chapter 2); the Bauhaus used DIN sizes but did not create them. |
Weissenhof, 1927
- The idea. To show, in real buildings, how people might live in the modern city, with terraces, flat roofs, large windows and open plans (check the descriptions).
- The people. Mies directed it and invited well-known architects; the group portrait of leading modernists is often cited (check who took part).
- The reaction. It drew large crowds and strong criticism, with some opponents calling it un-German (check the quotations and the sources, which come from both sides).
- Its fate. Some buildings were destroyed in the Second World War and several survive as museums and housing, and some are part of a World Heritage listing for works by Le Corbusier (check how many remain).
The Frankfurt Kitchen
The design
A small, carefully planned kitchen with built-in storage, a fold-down ironing board and labelled containers, laid out to save steps (check the features).
The thinking
It drew on ideas of efficiency and household rationalisation, and on studies of work movements (check the sources of the ideas, which included American writing on scientific management).
The debate
Supporters saw it as freeing women from drudgery; critics found it cramped and thought it assumed a woman would work alone in the kitchen (check the arguments, and Chapter 5).
Standards and the Standard Object
- The idea. If sizes of paper, bricks, windows and fittings are standard, they can be mass-produced and combined, which lowers cost and makes parts interchangeable.
- Where the Bauhaus fits. Gropius promoted standardised building parts and prefabrication, and the school's Törten estate tried it (Chapter 6; check the results, which were mixed).
- The 1914 question again. Standardisation was what Muthesius wanted and van de Velde feared (Chapter 2). The Weimar housing programmes put the argument into practice on a large scale.
- The criticism. Some residents and critics found the estates monotonous, and technical problems such as leaking flat roofs were widely reported (check the cases and whether they were typical).
Exercises
Describe the Weissenhof estate of 1927: who organised it, what it was meant to show, and how it relates to the Bauhaus.
Explain what the Frankfurt kitchen was, and why it is wrong to call it a Bauhaus design.
Explain what DIN standards are, and connect them to the 1914 Werkbund argument from Chapter 2.
Quick Reference
- The movement: Neues Bauen, "New Building", for cheap, planned housing (check)
- Weissenhof (1927): a Werkbund exhibition directed by Mies, in Stuttgart (check)
- The Frankfurt kitchen (1926): by Schütte-Lihotzky for Ernst May's housing programme; not the Bauhaus (check)
- DIN: German industrial standards, from 1917, including paper sizes (check)
- The Bauhaus's part: Gropius's prefabrication and the Törten estate; one strand among several