The Politics & Philosophy of the Bauhaus Design Movement: A Short Introduction
This year marks the centennial of the Bauhaus, the German art-and-design school and movement whose influence now makes itself felt all over the world. The clean lines and clarity of function exhibited by Bauhaus buildings, imagery, and objects — the very definition of what we still describe as “modern” — appeal in a way that transcends not just time and space but culture and tradition, and that’s just as the school’s founder Walter Gropius intended. A forward-looking utopian internationalist, Gropius seized the moment in the Germany left ruined by the First World War to make his ideals clear in the Bauhaus Manifesto: “Together let us call for, devise, and create the construction of the future, comprising everything in one form,” he writes: “architecture, sculpture and painting.”
In about a dozen years, however, a group with very little time for the Bauhaus project would suddenly rise to prominence in Germany: the Nazi party. “Their right-wing ideology called for a return to traditional German values,” says reporter Michael Tapp
The Bauhaus movement: Shaping modern design and business
After the end of World War I, Germany was devastated economically and socially, jeopardised by poverty and hopelessness. The political and social upheaval was on the horizon, and all the general efforts were oriented toward survival amid the crisis.
History tells us that challenging scenarios are always the cornerstones of innovation and change. In , only four years after the war ended, Weimar became the epicentre of a new political agreement that transformed Germany into a democratic republic. This period was known as the Weimar Republik ().
Far from coincidence, in this same place, motivated by the general enthusiasm and openness to new systems of thought, the celebrated German architect Walter Gropius created and developed a new education system that aimed to unite fine art and technology so that they could contribute to the rising of an innovative, integral and evolved German society.
This movement was called Bauhaus.
“Limitation makes the creative mind inventive” - Walter Gropius.
More than years later, the Bauhaus movement () stands as one of the most influential art movements that have positively impact
The Bauhaus was founded in in the city of Weimar by German architect Walter Gropius (–). Its core objective was a radical concept: to reimagine the material world to reflect the unity of all the arts. Gropius explained this vision for a union of art and design in the Proclamation of the Bauhaus (), which described a utopian craft guild combining architecture, sculpture, and painting into a single creative expression. Gropius developed a craft-based curriculum that would turn out artisans and designers capable of creating useful and beautiful objects appropriate to this new system of living.
The Bauhaus combined elements of both fine arts and design education. The curriculum commenced with a preliminary course that immersed the students, who came from a diverse range of social and educational backgrounds, in the study of materials, color theory, and formal relationships in preparation for more specialized studies. This preliminary course was often taught by visual artists, including Paul Klee (), Vasily Kandinsky (–), and Josef Albers (), among others.
Following their immersion in Bauhaus theory, students entered specialized workshops, which included metalworking, cabinetmaking
Bauhaus projects are maturing, lessons from von der Leyen’s marquee strategy
This article is part of our special report New European Bauhaus, promoting citizen engagement, urban sustainability.
Three years on, the first New European Bauhaus projects are concluding and offering valuable insights into how the policy can be continued into the next legislative term and beyond.
In , the architect Walter Gropius founded the Staatliches Bauhaus art school in Weimar, Germany. Within a decade, it had become famous worldwide for its philosophy, a modernist architecture unifying the principles of art and design with mass production and function. The Bauhaus movement eventually became one of the most influential currents in modern design.
In , European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sought to tap into this spirit to manifest her flagship EU Green Deal in architecture, launching the New European Bauhaus policy and funding initiative shortly after the movement’s th anniversary. “If the European Green Deal has a soul, then it is the New European Bauhaus which has led to an explosion of creativity across our Union,” President von der Leyen has said.
Translating investme
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