Bauhaus

Bauhaus

"Bauhaus is a German expression meaning house for building. In 1919, the economy in Germany was collapsing after a crushing war. Architect Walter Gropius was appointed to head a new institution that would help rebuild the country and form a new social order. Called the Bauhaus, the Institution called for a new "rational" social housing for the workers. Bauhaus architects rejected "bourgeois" details such as cornices, eaves, and decorative details. They wanted to use principles of Classical architecture in their most pure form: without ornamentation of any kind.

Bauhaus buildings have flat roofs, smooth facades, and cubic shapes. Colors are white, gray, beige, or black. Floor plans are open and furniture is functional.

The Bauhaus school disbanded when the Nazis rose to power. Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and other Bauhaus leaders migrated to the United States. The termInternational Style was applied to the American form of Bauhaus architecture." http://architecture.about.com/od/20thcenturytrends/ig/Modern-Architecture/Bauhaus.htm

• Architects Inspired by the Bauhaus Movement
• Walter Gropius
• Le Corbusier
• Richard Neutra
• Philip Johnson
• Mies van der Rohe
• Marcel Breuer

The Bauhaus was very unusual among 20th Century art schools, because it tried to give a complete grounding in the visual arts and the visual and the visual crafts.  What it tried to do was to say making was the basis of everything, not theory.  To start everything off with the direct imprint of the hand, on receptive material on whatever that might be; old materials like stone and wood and ceramic, new materials like plastic.


Mies Van De Rohe governed the Bauhaus for three years, during that time and after, The Bauhaus had enormous impact, upon the way that people thought about design and made everything car radiators to tea pots.


Many of the best design ideas of 20th centruy were produced by the Bauhaus, and they have yet to be superseded.