debauhaus1-3, Exercise 2: The manifesto and the cathedral

Model answer:

The aim of Gropius's April 1919 manifesto was to unite all the arts under architecture: it says that the ultimate aim of all creative activity is the building, and calls on architects, sculptors and painters to return to the crafts, since it sees no essential difference between artist and craftsman (check the wording, which differs between translations). It also attacks the class barrier between craftsmen and artists and calls for a new guild.

The woodcut on the cover, by Lyonel Feininger, shows a cathedral with three stars. It is usually read as a symbol of a shared, spiritual, collective building project in which all the arts take part, in the way medieval cathedrals were built by many crafts together (check the title and the interpretation).

What the manifesto does not mention that people expect: machines, industry and mass production. The famous slogan about art and technology belongs to 1923 (check), not 1919. The founding Bauhaus was craft-based, guild-minded and idealistic, which is quite different from the plain, industrial image that the name now carries.