The Story of the Bauhaus: The Art and Design School That Changed Everything

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Albers was appointed to the teaching staff in 1923 before he had even completed his courses at the school. He began in the glass painting workshop and taught furniture design, drawing and lettering. For those after some wider reading on Bauhaus, this photography book takes readers to Cape Cod, where Walter Gropius and his wife Ise hosted several of the movement's masters like Marcel Breuer, László Moholy-Nagy, and Bayer during the summer of 1937. Gropius remained as director for nine years and steered the Bauhaus school into developing a cohesive style, though that was not his original intention. Starting in 1925, Gropius oversaw the school’s move to Dessau, allowing the opportunity for the principles of Bauhaus to manifest in the school’s physical space. Gropius designed the Bauhaus Building and several other buildings for the new campus. Born in Switzerland in 1879, Klee had been associated with various Expressionist and modernist groupings in Northern Europe during the 1900s and 1910s, including Der Blaue Reiter group, before taking up a post at the Bauhaus in 1921, teaching mural painting, stained glass, bookbinding, and various other subjects. He published his art lectures in his Pädagogisches Skizzenbuch ( Pedagogical Sketchbooks) (1925) in the Bauhausbücher series. Famously beginning with the line "[a]n active line on a walk, moving freely, without goal," this work became hugely influential, establishing, as the critic Mark Hudson puts it, "[Klee's] reputation as one of the great theorists of modern art...[as] he attempted to analyze every last permutation of his wandering lines." For Klee, the line, developing from a single point, was an autonomous agent, spontaneous, which through its movement forged the development of the plane. This metaphor for the germination of compositional form became a fundamental tenet of Bauhaus design philosophy, influencing many of Klee's contemporaries, including Anni Albers and Klee's lifelong friend Wassily Kandinsky. Metalworking was another popular workshop at the Bauhaus and, along with the cabinetmaking studio, was the most successful in developing design prototypes for mass production. In this studio, designers such as Marianne Brandt ( 2000.63a–c), Wilhelm Wagenfeld ( 1986.412.1–16), and Christian Dell (1893–1974) created beautiful, modern items such as lighting fixtures and tableware. Occasionally, these objects were used in the Bauhaus campus itself; light fixtures designed in the metalwork shop illuminated the Bauhaus building and some faculty housing. Brandt was the first woman to attend the metalworking studio, and replaced László Moholy-Nagy ( 1987.1100.158) as studio director in 1928. Many of her designs became iconic expressions of the Bauhaus aesthetic. Her sculptural and geometric silver and ebony teapot ( 2000.63a–c), while never mass-produced, reflects both the influence of her mentor, Moholy-Nagy, and the Bauhaus emphasis on industrial forms. It was designed with careful attention to functionality and ease of use, from the nondrip spout to the heat-resistant ebony handle.

This elegant and innovative teapot uses the interplay of geometric forms as the basis for a distinctively modern design, with its hemispheric body centered on crossbars and topped by a flat circular lid. The handle, a half-circle of ebony, and the cylindrical knop, are also made of ebony, and contrast vertically with the horizontal plane of the body, a juxtaposition complemented by the contrast in materials and colors. As the art curator Christian Witt-Dörring puts it, "[e]ach individual part - lid, handle, spout and base - can be clearly read. Brandt then put all of them together again by creating an abstract sculpture, which, at the same time, is a teapot. The flat and spherical shapes harmonize perfectly." Moholy-Nagy also created sculptures such as his kinetic light and motion machines called “light modulators,” and abstract, geometrical paintings. Oskar Schlemmer News from Dezeen Events Guide, a listings guide covering the leading design-related events taking place around the world. Plus occasional updates. Dezeen Awards China The updated version of the book contains around 250 new images with new captions, updated biographies of key people from the Bauhaus alongside bibliographies of their work and a new foreword.MIT Press Direct is a distinctive collection of influential MIT Press books curated for scholars and libraries worldwide. László Moholy-Nagy was born in Hungary in 1895. In 1920 he emigrated to Germany, and in 1923, with his artistic reputation already somewhat in place, he was invited by Gropius to take over the running of the school's "basic course" or vorkurs from Johannes Itten. Though Moholy-Nagy worked across a range of media, his photograms became icons of Bauhaus experimentation. Created by placing objects on photo-sensitive paper exposed to ambient light, these works, in the artist's own words, made light "the medium of plastic expression". Though photography was not officially part of the school's curriculum, Moholy-Nagy operated as a photographic department of one, and his ardent enthusiasm inspired many of the Bauhaus's faculty and students to undertake their own photographic experiments. Fascinated by light, Moholgy-Nagy would continue to explore the possibilities of the photogram throughout his career, notably at the Chicago School of Design, which he founded in 1939 after moving to America. "Light laboratory" courses were fundamental to the curriculum at Chicago, and Moholy-Nagy's work influenced many subsequent North-American artists, such as Arthur Siegel. Paul Klee joined the school’s faculty in 1920, bringing with him a fascination with the art and artistic processes of non-Western cultures and children that he melded with a geometric, often scientific approach to abstract painting. His tenure at Bauhaus saw him create works that are lauded for their poetry and humor, as with his 1922 painting, Dance, Monster, to My Soft Song! The typography workshop, while not initially a priority of the Bauhaus, became increasingly important under figures like Moholy-Nagy and the graphic designer Herbert Bayer ( 2001.392). At the Bauhaus, typography was conceived as both an empirical means of communication and an artistic expression, with visual clarity stressed above all. Concurrently, typography became increasingly connected to corporate identity and advertising. The promotional materials prepared for the Bauhaus at the workshop, with their use of sans serif typefaces and the incorporation of photography as a key graphic element, served as visual symbols of the avant-garde institution.

Whether you’re a design aficionado or a casual reader intrigued by the legacy of Bauhaus, these top three books will undoubtedly enrich your knowledge and understanding of this influential movement. Owing its origin to German architect Walter Gropius, one of the pioneers of modernist architecture, the Bauhaus school professes integration of ostensibly varied disciplines, such as craft, fine arts, and architecture, to create Gesamtkunstwerk, a ‘complete work of art.’The ABC’s of Bauhaus: The Bauhaus and Design Theory” by Ellen Lupton and J. Abbott Miller introduces readers to the basic tenets of Bauhaus design while comparing Bauhaus to other schools from various perspectives. What book provides authentic Bauhaus insights? Klee left the Bauhaus in 1931 and died in 1940. Surrealist painters Joan Miró and Andre Masson credit Klee as a major influence on their work. Wassily Kandinsky Enjoy diving into the remarkable history, design theories, and political intricacies of the Bauhaus world, and get ready to embark on an unforgettable journey. In 1928, Swiss architect Hannes Mayer took over from Gropius, but his tenure was a troubled one, with student-teacher ratios becoming a big problem for the school and various disputes with Communist students and anti-Communist faculty members. He was dismissed in 1930. His wife Annie Albers studied weaving at the Bauhaus, a choice due to her frailty (caused by Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease). Often mentioned as the most important textile artist of the 20th century, her efforts entered the realm of abstract art with her wall hangings—she even created new textiles.

Wilk, Christopher, ed. Modernism: Designing a New World, 1914–1939. Exhibition catalogue. London: V&A Publications, 2006. Additional Essays by Alexandra Griffith Winton From 1925 to 1930, Gropius and Moholy-Nagy were responsible for the publication of 14 Bauhaus books. Supported in the practical aspects of publishing by Lucia Moholy, the aim of the project was to depict the challenges and accomplishments of the Bauhaus. In addition, monographic texts by both German and international authors were to awaken an understanding for the diverse currents of the avant-garde movement. Other beginner-friendly options include “Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity” by Barry Bergdoll, and “The Bauhaus: #itsalldesign” by Mateo Kries and Jolanthe Kugler. Which book is suitable for those who want to dive deeper into Bauhaus design theory?Oskar Schlemmer taught at the school from 1920 to 1929, specializing in design, sculpture and murals, but preferring to pursue theater. He was appointed the school’s director of theater activities in 1923 and created an experimental theater workshop in 1925. The book “50 Bauhaus Icons You Should Know” by Josef Strasser serves as a perfect introduction to Bauhaus, as it features 100 color illustrations and 50 non-color ones, chronicling the works of several masters like Albers, Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy, and Klee.