debauhaus1-7, Exercise 1: Three directors

Model answer:

Walter Gropius (1919 to 1928) founded the school and led it from the craft-based, idealistic Weimar years to the industrial cooperation of the first Dessau years. Hannes Meyer (1928 to 1930), a Swiss architect with left-wing views, set up a full architecture department and stressed the social purpose of design, summed up in a phrase usually translated as the needs of the people rather than the need for luxury; he was dismissed by the city in 1930 after political controversy. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1930 to 1933), already known for the Barcelona Pavilion and the Tugendhat House, tried to keep politics out of the school and made architecture the centre of the curriculum (check each date and description).

Why a single description of "the Bauhaus" is risky: the school changed a great deal across fourteen years and three directors. Statements such as "it was about craft", "it was about industry", "it was political" or "it was apolitical" are each true of some years and false of others, so any claim about "the Bauhaus" should say which period and which director it refers to.