Chapter 74
The Bauhaus:
the evolution of an idea 1919-32
Let us create a new gu il d of craftsmen. wi t hout
t he class dist incti ons w hich raise an arrog_a nt
barri er betwee n craftsman and arti st. ·Togeth er
let us co nceive and create the new buil ding
of t he futu re. wh ich wi ll embrace architect ure
and sculptu re and painting in one uni ty and
which w ill rise one d ay toward heaven from the
han ds of a mi llion workers like t he crys tal
symbol of a new faith .
Proclamation of the Weimar Bauh aus. 1919
The Bauhaus was the outcome of a continuous
effort to reform applied art education in Ger-
many around the turn of the century, first with
the establishment in 1898 of Karl Schmidt's
Dresdner Werkstatten (which became the
Deutsche Werkstatten, and moved to the garden
city of Hellerau in 1908) , then with the appoint -
ment in 1903 of Hans Poelzig and Peter Behrens
to the directorships of applied art schools in
Breslau and Di.isseldorf, and finally, in 1906, with
the founding of the Grand Ducal School of Arts
and Crafts in Weimar under the direction of the
Belgian architect Henry van de Velde .
Despite the ambitious structures that he
designed for both the Fine Arts Building and
the School of Arts and Crafts, Van de Velde did
little more in his tenure than establish a rela -
tively modest Kunstseminar for craftsmen.
After his enforced resignation as an alien in
1915, he advised the Saxon State Ministry that
Walter Gropius, Hermann Obrist or August
End ell would make a suitable successor.
Protracted discussions took place throughout
the war between the Ministry and Fritz
Mackensen, head of the Grand Ducal Academy
of Fin e Art, as to the relative pedagogical status
of fine and applied art, with Gropius arguing
for the relative autonomy of the latter. Gropius
advocated a workshop-based design education
for both designers and craftsmen, while Mac-
kensen stuck to the Prussian idealist line,
insisting that artist-craftsmen should be trained
in a fine art academy. This ideological conflict
was resolved in 1919 in compromise: Gropius
became director of a composite institution,
consisting of the Academy of Art and the
School of Arts and Crafts, an arrangement that
was to divide the Bauhaus, conceptually,
throughout its existence .
The principles of the Bauhaus Proclamation
of 1919 had been anticipated in Bruno Taut's
architectural programme for the Arbeitsrat f i.ir
Kunst, published late in 1918. Taut argued that
a new cultural unity could be attained only
through a new art of building, wherein each
separate discipline would contribute to the
final form . 'At this point,' he wrote, 'there will
be no boundaries between the crafts, sculpture
and painting; all will be one: Architecture. '
This anarchic reworking of th e Gesamt-
kunstwerk ideal was elaborated by Gropius
first in the pamphlet written in April 1919 for
the ' Exhibition of Unknown Arc hitects', organ-
ized by the Arbeitsrat fi.ir Kunst, and then in his
Bauhaus Proclamation of about th e same date.
Where the one called on all fine artists to reject
salon art and to return to the crafts in the service
of a metaphorical cathedral of the future - 'to
go into buildings, endow th em w ith fairy
tales ... and build in fantasy without regard for
technical difficulty' - the other exhorted the
members of the Bauhaus 'to create a new guild
of craftsmen , without the class distinctions
which raise an arrogant barrier bet ween crafts-
man and artist'.
Even the word Bauhaus, which Gropius
persuaded the reluctant state government to
adopt as the official title of the new institution,
123
intentionally reca ll ed the medieval Bauhutte or
masons· lodge. That such connotations were
deliberate is confirmed by a letter written by
Oskar Schlemmer in 1 922:
Originally the Bauhaus was fou nded with
visio ns of erecting the cathedral of socialism
and the workshops were established in the
man ner of the cathedra l building lodges
[Dombauhuuen]. The idea of the cathedral
has for t he time being receded into the back-
ground and with it certain definite ideas of an
artistic nature. Today we must think at best in
terms of the house. perha ps even on ly think so.
. In the face of the economic pl ight. it is our
task to become pioneers of simplicity, that is. to
find a simple form for all life's necessities.
wh ich is at the same time respectable and
genuine.
For the first three years of its existence the
Bauhaus was dominated by the charismatic
1 02 Feininger, woodcut for the Bauhaus Procla-
mation, 1919. Zukunftskathedrale, the cathedral of
the future as the cathedral of socialism .
presence of the Swiss painter and teacher,
Johannes ltten , who arrived in the autumn of
1919. Three years earlier he had started his own
art school in Vienna, under the influence of
Franz Cizek. In a highly charged milieu, col-
oured by the anarchic anti-Seccessionist activ-
ities of the painter Oskar Kokoschka and the
architect Adolf Loos, Cizek had developed a
unique system of instru ction based on sti mulat -
ing individual creativity through the making of
collages of different materials and textures.
His methods had matured in a cultural climate
impregnated with progressive educational
theory, from the systems of Froebel and
Montessori to the 'learning -through-doing'
movement, initiated by the American John
Dewey and vigorously propagated in Gerrrrany
after 1908 by the educational reformer Georg
Kerschensteiner . The teaching in ltten 's Vien-
nese school and in the Vorkurs, or preliminary
course, that he in itiated in the Bauha us was
derived from Cizek, although ltten enriched the
method with the form and colour theory of his
own master Adolf Holzel. Th e aims of ltten's
foundation co urse, mandatory for all first-yea r
students, were to release individual creativity
and to enable each student to assess his own
particu lar ability.
Up to 1920, when, at ltten's request, th e
artists Schlemmer, Paul Klee and Georg Muche
joined the Bauhaus, he taught, single-handed,
four separate craft courses in addition to the
Vorkurs, while Gerhard Marcks and Lyon el
Feininger gave marginal courses in ceramics
and printing respectively. ltten·s anarchic
position at the time may be gleaned from his
1922 response to a referendum on the provision
of state welfare for artists:
The mind stands outside any organization
Where it has nevertheless been organized
(religion. church) it has become estranged
from its innate nature. . The state should take
care that none of its citizens sta rve. but it
should not support art.
ltten's anti-authoritarian, even mystical, pos-
ition was substantially reinforced in 1921 by
his extended stay in the Mazdaznan centre at
Herrliberg near Zurich. He returned in the
middle of the year to convert his pupils and his
 The growing division between Gropius and
ltten was exacerbated by the appearance in
Weimar of two equally powerful personalities:
the Dutch De Stijl artist Theo van Doesburg,
who took up residence in the winter of 1921 ,
and the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky,
who joined the Bauhaus, at ltten 's instigation,
in the summer of 1922. Where the former
postulated a rational, anti - individualist aes-
thetic, the latter taught an emotive and ultim -
ately mystical approach to art. Althoug.h the
two men did not come into direct conflict, Van
Doesburg's extramural De Stijl polemic in-
stantly appealed to many Bauhaus students.
His teaching not only had an immediate impact
on the production of the workshops, but also
directly challenged the open -ended precepts
of the original Bauhaus programme. His
influence was even reflected in the furn ishing
of Gropius's own office, and in the asym-
metrical composition of Gropius's entry for the

103 ltten, in the Ma zdaznan work costume that he

designed , 1921 . 1 04 Gropius and A. M eyer, project for the Chicago
Tribune Building, 1922.
colleague Muche to the rigours of this up-
dated version of an archaic Persian religion .
The cult demanded an austere life style, periodic
fasting and a vegetarian diet flavoured with
cheese and garlic. The physical and spiritual
well - being deemed to be essential to creativity
was further assured by breathing and relaxation
exerc ises. Of this inner -directed orientation
ltten later wrote:

The terrible lo sses and horrib le even ts of World

War I and a close study of Speng ler's Decline
of the West made me realize that we had
reached a crucial point in our scientific-
technological civilizatio n. For me, it was not
enough to embrace the slogans 'return to
craft' or 'a rt and technology, hand in hand'. I
studied Eastern philosophy, delved into Persia n
Mazdaism and Indian yoga teachings, and
compared them with early Christianity. I
reached the conclus ion that we must counter-
balance our externally-orientated scientific
research and techno log ica l speculation with
inner-directed thought and practice. I searched
for something, for myself and my work, on
w hich to base a new way of life.
1922 Chicago Tribune competition, designed
with Adolf Meyer.
In 1922, after Van Doesburg had been
proselytizing for nine months, the generally
critical socio-economic situation brought Gro-
pius to modify the craft orientation of the
original programme. His initial attack on ltten
appeared in his circular to the Bauhaus masters,
where he indirectly criticized ltten's monastic
rejection of the world . This text was in effect a
draft for his essay /dee und Aufbau des Staat-
lichen Bauhauses Weimar (The Theory and
Organization of the Bauhaus'), published on
the occasion of the first Bauhaus exhibition
held in Weimar in 1923. He wrote:
The teaching of craft is meant to prepare for
designing for mass production Starting with the
simplest tools and least complicated jobs. he
[the Bauhaus apprentice] gradually acquires
abi lity to master more intricate problems and
to work with machi ne s. while at the same time
he keeps in touch with the entire process of
production from start to finish. whereas the
factory worker never gets beyond the knowledge
of one phase of the process. Therefore the
Bauhaus is consc iously seeking contacts w ith
existing industrial enterprises. for the sake of
mutua l stimulation.
This carefully worded argument for the recon-
ciliation of craft design and industrial pro-
duction brought about ltten's immediate resig-
nation .
His position on the faculty was immediately
filled by the Hungarian artist and social radical
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. On his arrival in Berlin
in 1921 (as a refugee from the short-lived
Hungarian revolution), Moholy-Nagy had
come into contact with the Russian designer
El Lissitzky, who was then in Germany for the
preparations of the Russian Exhibition of 1922.
This encounter encouraged him to pursue his
own Constructivist leanings, and from this date
forward his paintings featured Suprematist
elements, those modular crosses and rectangles
soon to become the substance of his famous
'telepho ne' pictures, executed in enamelled
steel. Of these he wrote:
In 1922 I ordered by telephone from a sign
factory five paintings in porcelain enamel. I
126
had the factory's colour chart before me and I
sketched my ,paintings on graph paper. At the
other end of the telephone the factory super-
visor had the same kind of pape r. divided into
squares. He took down the dicta\ed shapes in
the correct position.
This spectacular demonstration of programmed
art production seems to have impressed
Gropius, for in the following year he invited
Moholy-Nagy to take over both the prelimin-
ary course and the metal workshop. Under
Moholy-Nagy's leadership the products of the
latter were at once orientated towards a
'Constructivist Elementarism', which was tem-
pered over the years by a mature concern for
the convenience of the objects produced. In th e
meantime he introduced into the preliminary
course, which he shared with Josef Albers,
exercises in equilibrium structures in a variety of
materials, includ ing wood, metal, wire and
glass. The aim was no longer to demonstrate
a feeling for contrasting materials and forms,
usua lly assembled as reliefs, but rather to
reveal the statical and aesthetic properties of
free-standing asymmetrical structures. The epi-
tome of such 'exercises' was the building of his
own Light-Space Modulator, on which he was
to be occupied from 1922 to 1930.
The ' Constructivist Elementarist' style, which
Moholy-Nagy had partly derived from the
Vkhutemas (Higher Technical and Artistic
Studios) of the Soviet Union, was complemen-
ted elsewhere in the Bauhaus by the De Stijl
influence of Van Doesburg and by a post-
Cubist approach to form, as evidenced in the
sculpture workshops under Schlemmer's di-
rection from 1922. An early manifestation of this
'Elementarist' aesthetic, instantly adopted as
a house style after ltten's resignation, was
the sans serif typography used by Herbert
Bayer and Joost Schmidt for the Bauhaus
Exhibition of 1923.
Two model houses, largely built and fur-
nished by the Bauhaus workshops, character-
ize this period of transition, revealing comm on
elements and striking dissimilarities. They are
the Sommerfeld House, designed by Gropi us
and Meyer and completed in Berlin-Dahlem in
1922, and the Bauhaus 'Versuchshaus' or
Experimental House, designed by Muche and
Meyer for the Bauhaus Exh ibition of 1923.
Where the first was designed as a traditional
Heimatstil log house, with an interior enriched
with carved wood and stained glass so as to
create a Gesamtkunstwerk, the second was
conceived as a sachlich, smoothly rendered
object, furnish ed with the latest labour - saving
devices so as to be a Wohnmaschine or living
machine. This minimum-circulation house was
organized around an 'atrium· - not an open
court but a clerestory-lit living-room sur -
rounded on all sides by bedrooms and oth er
ancillary spaces. Each of these perim eter rooms
was equipped in an austere manner, with
exposed meta l radiators, steel windows and
door fram es, elemental furniture and unshaded
tubular li g ht fittings. Whil e most of these
pieces were hand-made in the Bauhaus work-
shops, Adolf Meyer, in his report on the house
in Bauhausbucher 3 (1923), emphasized its
furnishing with standard bathroom and kitchen
equipment and its construction with entirely
new materials and methods.
The changing ideology of the Bauhaus was
further demonstrated in an article by Gropiu s
105 Mu che and A . M eyer, Experimental House,
Bauhaus Exh ib ition, Weimar, 1923.
in the same issue of Bauha usbucher; entitled
'Wohnh aus- lndu stri e', it illustrated a remark -
able round house proj ect ed by Karl Fieger, the
ce ntrali zed, light-weight co nception of whi ch
anticipated Buckmin ster Fuller's Dyma xion
House of 1927. In addition, Gropius publish ed
his own ' Serienhauser', or extending house
units, intended as prototypes for th e Bau-
haussiedlung, a housing estate which he hoped
to build on the outskirts of W eimar. Th ese serial
houses were finally realized as masters' resi-
d ences built at the Dessau Bauhaus in 1926.
After 1923 the Bauhau s approach became
extremely 'objective·, in the sense of being
close ly affiliated to the Neue Sachlichkeit
movement. This affiliation, which was reflected,
despite the ir rather formalistic massing, in the
buildings for the Dessau Bauhaus itself, was
to become more pronounced after Gropius's
resignation in 1 928. Th e last two years of
Gropius's tenure were distinguish ed by three
major developments: the politically enforced
and well-orchestrated move from W eimar to
Dessa u, th e completion of the Dessau Bauhau s,
and finally the gradual emergence of a recog-
nizable Bauhaus approach, in which a greater
106, 107 Grop iu s, Bauhau s, Dessau, 1925- 26.
Exterior showing the pin wheel composit ion (see
p. 138) ; below, bridge linking administration and
workshop blocks, on inauguration day, 1926.
 Bauhaus ,typography finally matured with
Bayer's austere layout and sans serif type,
about to become world famous for its exclusion
of upper-case letters . The year 1927 also saw
the formation of the architectural department,
under the leadership of the Swiss architect
Hannes Meyer. A number of Breuer's pre-
fabricated house designs of around this time
reflect the immediate impact of Meyer's in-
108 Jucker, adjustable piano lamp, 1923. fluence. Meyer brought with him his talented
colleague Hans Wittwer who, like him, had
been a member of the left-wing ABC group in
Basie (see below, p. 132).
Early in 1928 Gropius tendered his resig-
nation to the mayor of Dessau and appointed
Meyer as his successor. The relative maturity
of the institution, the unremitting attacks on
himself and the growth of his practice all con-
vinced him 'that it was time for a change. This
move radically transformed the Bauhaus an d,
paradoxically enough, given the growing re-
actionary climate of Dessau, shifted its orien-
tation still further left and even closer to t he
Neue Sachlichkeit position. For a variety of
reasons Moholy-Nagy, Breuer and Bayer fol-
11 0 Gropius, Bauhaus, Dessau, 1925-26. Main
hall with Breuer furniture.

109 Bauhaus light fittings, of pressed metal and

opalescent glass, mass-prod uced under the direction
of H. Meyer.

emphasis was placed on deriving form from

productive method, material constraint and
programmatic necessity.
The furniture workshops, under Marcel
Breuer's brilliant direction, started in 1926 to
produce tubular steel light-weight chairs arid
tables which were convenient, easy to clean
and economical. These pieces, together with
the •light fittings from the metal workshop, were
used to furnish the interior of the new Bauhaus
buildings. By 1927 the 'licensed' industrial
production of such Bauhaus designs was in full
sw ing, including the Breuer furniture, the tex-
tured fabrics of Gunta Stadler-Stolzl and her
co lleagues, and the elegant lamps and metal-
ware of Marianne Brandt. In that year too,

128
lowed Gropius's lead and resigned. As Moholy- mu n ist Party was an impossibi lity from the party
Nagy indicated in his letter of resignation , he organizatio n point of view, no use my assuring
disliked Meyer's immediate insistence on the you t hat my political activities were of a
adoption of a rigorous design method: cultural and never a party character... Munici -
pa l pol itics require you to provide resou nding
I can't afford a continuatio n on this specialized
Bauhaus successes, a brilliant Bauhaus facade
purely objective and efficient basis - either and a prestigious Bauhaus director. ·
productively or humanly.. Under a programme
of increased tech nology I can only cont inue if Municipal politics and German right - wing
I have a tec hni ca l expe rt as my aide. For reaction in the event required considerably
economic reaso ns this wi ll never be possible. more. They required the Bauhaus closed arid its
sachlich fac;:ade capped by an 'Aryan' pitched
Largely liberated from the inhibiting in- roof. They required the Marxists impeached and
fluen.ce of Gropius's star faculty, Meyer was the liberal emigres banished along with their
able to steer the work of the Bauhaus towards obscure art works - later to be designated as
a more 'socially responsible' design programme. decadent. The desperate attempt of the mayor
Simple, demountable, inexpensive, plywood of Dessau to shore up the Bauhaus, in t he name
furniture came to the fore and a range of wall- of liberal democracy, through the patriarchal
paper was produced . More Bauhaus designs directorship of Mies van der Rohe, was
were being manufactured than ever before, doomed to failure. The Bauhaus remained in
although the emphasis was now placed on Dessau for but two more years. In October
social rather than aesthetic considerat ions. 1 932 what was left of it moved into an old
Meyer organized the Bauhaus into four major warehouse on the outskirts of Berlin, but by
departments: architecture (now called 'build - now the floodgates of reaction were open, and
ing' for polemical reasons), advertising, wood nine months later the Bauhaus was finally
and metal production, and textiles. Supple- clo sed.
mentary scientific courses, such as industrial
111 Yamawak i, 'The End of the Dessau Bauh aus',
orga nization and psychology, were introduced col lage, 1932.
into all departments, while the building section
shifted its emphasis to the economic optim -
ization of plan arrangements and to methods for
t he precise calculation of light, sunlight, heat
loss/ gain, and acousti cs. This ambitious pro-
gramme required an increase in faculty, so that
W ittwer's appointment as a technician was
soon complemented by that of the architect/
planner Ludwig Hilberseim er, th e eng in eer
A lcar Rud elt and a studio staff comprising
A lfred Arndt, Karl Fi eger, Edvard Heiberg and
M art Stam .
Despite Meyer's co nce rn to prevent the
Bauhaus from becoming a tool of left -wi ng
party politics (he resisted an attempt to form
a student Communist cell), a remorseless
campaign against him finally forced the mayor
to demand his resignation. Meyer revea led his
understanding of the situation in an open letter
to the mayor, Fritz Hesse:

It was no use explaining [to you] that a

' Bauhaus Dessau· group of the German Com -

129