BAUHAUS DESIGN MOVEMENT

•      The Bauhaus design movement was Started by a design school and believe me when I say that no school of design has been as influential as the Bauhaus. 

•      The Bauhaus was founded by the architect Walter Gropius in 1919 in Weimer Germany with a vision of bridging the gap between art and industry by combining design, crafts and fine arts.

•      Prior to the Bauhaus movement, applied arts such as architecture and design were held in higher esteem than craftsmanship (i.e., painting, woodworking, etc.),/ but Gropius asserted, that all crafts, including art, architecture and design, could be brought together and mass-produced.

•      Gropius argued that architecture and design should reflect the new period in history (post World War I), and adapt to the era of the machine.

•      The Bauhaus movement is characterized by economic sensibility, simplicity and a focus on mass production. The name “Bauhaus” is an inversion of the German term “hausbau,” which means “building house” or house construction.

•      We all know that the world was forever changed by the innovations of industrial revolution (steam age) which brought revolutions to the transportation, agriculture, and industry. The scientific advances influenced mass production which was quick and fairly cheap.

•      Before the industrial revolution, design was meant only for the rich and influential. But the industrial revolution made design available to the masses.

•      To understand the production of the early 20th century design movements one needs to bear in mind that economic and political factors played a major role in its definitions. The movements, such as Arts and Crafts, along with Bauhaus, responded to the mass produced objects.

•      The Bauhaus school embraced the technology and innovations by attempting to re-define the notion of art schools. Taking away the boundary between art and design, the teachings and products of Bauhaus still influence the design industry today.

•      The Bauhaus philosophy Believed in beauty plus functionality; their motto was ‘form follows function’. It was at this time that the school adopted the slogan “Art into Industry.”

•      Simplicity in design was also built into the bauhaus design philosophy and the Focus was on use of primary colours and straight lines and basic forms.

•      Gropius sought to infuse fine arts with technology. His interest for functional design always led him to developing industrial sites and housing complexes that could be built in a fast and economic way.

•      From 1907, Walter Gropius collaborated with a group of artists, architects and designers from the Deutscher Werkbund, Bauhaus’ predecessor. Based in Munich, this group liked to create simple, restrained and functional objects that unite design and the best of the industrial processes that were being developed during this era.

•      When Gropius was chosen as the director of two newly created art schools in Weimar, he took all of the Werkbund influences and, from 1919, used them as a driving force behind what he called Bauhaus (“house under construction”): a school dedicated to closing the gap between craftsmanship and industrial art. In a short space of time, the centre separated itself from other similar institutions and continued to develop its own personality, and to a larger extent to revolutionise the teaching methods.

•      The students from the school had to follow a study plan, which included materials related to fine arts as well as the latest design techniques to ensure that the projects were commercially viable.

•      At the beginning of their education they had immersive courses related to the study of materials, theories of colour and form as well as the different theoretical and practical aspects of craftsmanship.

•      After this first cycle, the students had a more specific timetable with workshops in areas such as basketmaking, pottery, typography and wall painting, always under the supervision of an artisan or an artist.

•      As a hub for avant-garde art, the Bauhaus soon caught the attention of artists, architects and experimental creators such as Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Mies van der Rohe and Josef Albers, who all came to become part of the teaching staff.

•      Art historians acknowledge that the Bauhaus approach to design had a major impact on art and architecture throughout Western Europe, North America and Israel, mainly because, so many of its influential teachers fled Germany because of the Nazi pressure and took up teaching posts abroad.

•      Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, influencing the likes of famous architects I.M. Pei, Lawrence Halprin and Paul Rudolph, among others.

•      The Nazi regime forced Bauhaus to shut down. However, the Bauhaus movement survived because it left the building. The Bauhäuslers were scattered all around the world in exile.

•      Germany’s loss was other countries’ gain/ as teachers and students took the design ethic with them, to places like Tel Aviv, Chicago, Detroit, Tokyo, and Amsterdam—through architecture, art, and industrial design.